Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (15 page)

She wiggled her shapely eyebrows. “I heard.”

“Um, heard what?” Did she think I was a murderer too?

“About your book.”

“You mean the...?”

“Of course. Is there another book?”

Certainly not my great Canadian novel mouldering quietly in the middle drawer of my battered desk. No one would ever
oh là là
over that.

“No. Where did you hear about it?”

“It is all over the village, Fiona. Spreading like a
feu de forêt.
In both official languages. You have almost but not quite replaced Rafaël and Marietta as the most interesting topic of
the day. Why didn't you tell me yesterday?”

I flopped onto the sofa again and groaned. “Because I didn't want to talk about it. It's a new project, and I'm not wild about the idea. What do you mean it's all over the village?”

“Well, what did you expect? In a town like this...” She shrugged beautifully, being French and all. “Surely you remember the last time. Oh
mon dieu.
Where is your furniture?”

“It's been borrowed. Are you sure? All over the village?”

“Certainement,
by now it will be halfway to Hull. Or Ottawa.”

“And I only told three people.”

“And I noticed that I was not one of them. That was not very nice of you, Fiona. I like to be on top of things in St. Aubaine.”

“Next time I'm not telling anyone anything.”

“But why are you not happy? The timing for this new book could not be better.”

Josey stuck her head around the corner. Hélène smiled fondly at her.

“Hi, Miz Lamontagne,” Josey said. “Miz Silk has to write a sex cookbook. But she doesn't have anything to cook with.”

Hélène flashed me a glance.

“Not my fault,” I said. “She was here when the call came in. She spoke to my agent. Anyway, it's not really that.”

“I believe it's an erotic cookbook,” Hélène said. “So much more elegant,
n'est-ce pas?”

“I guess so,” Josey said. “Does it make a difference what you call it?”

“But of course, Josée. Every woman has her little secrets to keep some spice in her life.”

“Hélène,” I whispered, “have you forgotten that someone is only fifteen?”

“Someone is standing right in front of you,” Josey said.

Hélène tsked. “Fiona, Josée is almost a woman.”

I stared at Hélène in unqualified amazement. I suppose up until that defining moment, it had never crossed my mind that the freckled girl with the bony frame and the goggling blue eyes and the cowlicky hair that looked like it had been cut with the garden shears, which it probably had been, could ever turn into a woman.

I barely stopped myself from asking where anyone would get such a harebrained idea.

“That's right,” Josey said. “I'm pushing sixteen. I'm saving for my driver's licence. I'll be looking for lots of odd jobs. Let me know, Miz Lamontagne, if you have anything when you-know-who is not around. Miz Silk is really broke, but she's running a tab, and that's all right, because I know she's good for it. She'll pay up when she gets the first part of the advance for the sex, I mean, erotic cookbook. But it's not getting off to such a good start.”

“Don't worry about that.
Bien sûr,
I will help her. Anything you need, Fiona. You can count on me.”

“Thanks, Hélène,” I said, hoping the conversation would end soon.

“Help her how?” Josey's cornflower blue eyes were the size of ashtrays.

Hélène smiled in that sensuous secret way that French women seem to be so good at.

“Will you tell her your little secrets, Miz Lamontagne?”

“I think I will, Josey. Jean-Claude and I have been married more than twenty years, and it's important to keep the romance in the relationship.”

I spotted the expression of horror creep over Josey's face and hoped my own reaction didn't seem quite so obvious. Secrets with Jean-Claude? Sex? It made the blood run cold.

Fortunately, Hélène seemed oblivious. “A man like that,”
she said, “I make it my job to keep his interest, to make him happy and excited to come home at night.”

Josey gasped. I felt faint.

Hélène said, “Candles, music, flowers, the right lingerie. It all matters. And then something to stimulate the taste buds.
Ah oui,
I will have some suggestions for your cookbook, Fiona.”

“Awesome,” said Josey in a shaky voice.

Hélène smiled at me. “And is there anything else I can do to help?”

Josey leaped in. “Miz Silk should get to meet Rafaël and Marietta. We've seen them on the street, and we've been up to Wallingford Estate, but it's not the same as a proper introduction. They could give her recipes. She could have her picture taken with them.”

I said, “Oh, I don't think...”

“Quelle bonne idée!
Jean-Claude worked very hard with the new owners of the Domaine Wallingford and with the executive producers to bring this in. He got funding and sponsors and provincial government grants. He made contacts. I will see what I can do.”

“That's great,” I said, politely. “But I don't want to put you to any trouble.”

I made sure I didn't glance at Josey. He'd made contacts, all right. And I didn't want to be the one to tell Hélène about them. Josey made tracks back to the kitchen.

“More than great, Fiona. It means that everyone he contacted will listen to him.”

“Oh.”

Josey popped back in again. “But Jean-Claude wants to buy Miz Silk's property, and she doesn't want to sell, and she doesn't have any money, so she'd be in a bad situation there, Miz Lamontagne. You can see that.”

“Of course, Josée, I don't know anything about Jean-Claude's real estate business. I would never think to interfere there. But he is much too busy with everything to be involved in this little meeting. So I will make the arrangements.
Moi-même.”

Josey said, “Oh, boy. That's better. You've got the connections. Would Rafaël and Marietta each give Miz Silk a sexy recipe? Miz Silk wouldn't really feel comfortable asking them. When we were up at the Wallingford Estate the other day...”

I shot her a warning glance.

She kept going. “No one paid any attention to us.”

“But I will ask them. Fiona, you really shouldn't be...how do you say that?”

Josey interjected. “Woody says she's a doormat.”

“Oui. C'est ça.”

“Listen, you two. I am not a doormat. I am merely practical.”

Josey grinned. “I told you it could really work for you, Miz Silk.”

I said, “What if they don't want to? I mean, it is a bit of a bother to help someone out with their cookbook, isn't it? Aren't they all very busy? What would they get out of it?”

Hélène laughed. “That is so sweet, Fiona. They will not do it themselves. That is what sous-chefs are for.”

“You see, Miz Silk.”

“Mais oui,
“Hélène said. “Marietta and Rafaël will show up for the photo shoot and whatever promotion is planned around this project.”

Photo shoot? My ears buzzed.

Hélène nodded, her artfully made-up face rapt, her burgundy hair aglow. “You could be at the centre
of En feu!”

“Sizzling,” Josey said.

It was past time for me to get moving on this cookbook, but thinking about Jean-Claude fuming triggered a thought. Something about smoke. Something I should have remembered. What? It was only after Josey had headed out for dog walking duties and Hélène had hurried off to a committee meeting that I remembered what. Of course. Danny Dupree's passenger had tossed a cigarette out the window, and it had landed on the Skylark's passenger seat. I'd moved it to the ashtray. Now why hadn't I remembered that useful tidbit when Sarrazin had made his early morning visit?

I hustled out to the car. Sure enough. There it was. A half-smoked cigarette with a lipstick smear on the filter. Perfect. I picked it up and put it in a plastic bag. I mean, it's not like I'd never seen a crime show on television.

Better late than never.

I settled Tolstoy in his basement retreat, climbed into the Skylark and took off for the village. I was getting pretty familiar with the interior of the Sûreté. Although that wasn't something that had ever been on my wish list. Sarrazin uttered a small sigh when I was ushered in past the bulletproof glass at the entrance.

“Remember the woman in the Escalade?” I said.

“The woman that wasn't there?”

“The woman who tossed a cigarette out the window. It flew into my car and landed on the vinyl, still burning. I put it in the ashtray and, well, here it is.” I held up the baggie.

He blinked.

“It proves she existed. I didn't imagine her.”

“You didn't mention it before.”

“It was such a small detail, and I was a bit rattled when you said it was murder. The drugs and everything.”

“Maybe Dupree tossed it.”

I passed him the bag. “Look at the lipstick.”

“Are you familiar with the phrase ‘chain of evidence', madame?”

“I guess I can figure out what it means.”

He handed the bag back to me. “Then you will understand that we can't use this at all. You could have picked it up off the street.”

“I didn't do that! Why would I?”

“I'm not really suggesting you did, but you could have. So we can't use this item in court.”

“Okay, fair enough, I just want you to know that she was there and that she must have had something to do with the crash. You said he'd been drugged. Maybe that accounts for his weird behaviour. Either she's involved, or she could be a witness. Or she could have—”

He shrugged. “It's a cigarette butt. That's all.”

“Fine. But listen to me. I've been thinking about this. They went past me at exit 13, and she was still in the car. I drove that route. There was no place for her to go.”

He raised his shoulders in that familiar shrug. “Maybe she hitchhiked.”

“Why would she get out of the Escalade to hitchhike? Unless she knew it was going to crash. That would explain a lot.”

“Maybe she'd been hitchhiking in the first place. Maybe Dupree picked her up.”

“I don't think so. Just from the glimpse I got, she looked fashionable. Expensive.”

“Hmmm. But you can't describe her, because you just caught a glimpse.”

“Okay, I admit that sounds goofy, but women have a sense about these things. And if you'd had the same glimpse, you would understand my point.”

“Which is?”

“Obvious. Where did she go? She didn't have much time to stand around. At the speed he was travelling, the accident must have taken place within ten minutes of the time I last saw the Escalade. I came along shortly afterwards. She definitely wasn't on the side of the road.”

“And...”

“Exactly. Even if she'd been picked up by someone, they would have had to stop for the accident. I saw a police cruiser go by just a minute or two after the Escalade. I was hoping he would have spotted the road rager, but Dupree was already out of sight. He stopped the traffic to make way for the emergency vehicles.”

Sarrazin frowned and nodded. “He was on his way back from court in Hull. Someone had already called the accident in from a cell phone, but he came upon the scene right afterwards.”

“You're probably thinking maybe he noticed the blonde woman with red lipstick in one of the cars.”

“I'm thinking he had other stuff on his mind beside women.”

“And she might have been smoking.”

“You aren't going to give up, are you?”

“I probably will. I'm not much of a fighter. But there's one more weird little bit.”

He sighed. Loudly.

“Right. Well, the strangest one was that I think this woman happened to be in the same ladies room as I was. Hear me out. I didn't see her there, but she must have seen me and thought that I would recognize her, so she locked me in the toilet stall. Before you ask how, she placed a chair under the door.”

He coughed suddenly.

“Go ahead, laugh. I realize how incredibly silly it sounds, but it did happen. There has to be some reason for it.”

“Forgive me, madame. But forgetting about why anyone
over the age of twelve would do that, if you were locked in and you didn't see this woman, and you don't know what she looked like in the first place, then where do you think we can go with this?”

“It was up at the Wallingford Estate. Josey spotted a woman with blonde streaky hair. I think it might have been Anabel Huffington-Chabot. My point is she could have locked me in because she knows that I know that she was in that Cadillac with Dupree just before he died. And she doesn't want that information to get out.”

He scratched his ear and shook his head. He lowered his eyebrows. He sighed for good measure. “Well, madame, if you see her again, you can tell her not to worry. Even if this information, which doesn't make sense, does get out, I have a reputation to uphold.”

“I'll keep that in mind. And while I am here, can I hand over this wallet that I found? It belongs to a woman called Harriet Crowder. She's some kind of producer with
En feu!
I just can't track her down.”

“Try the front desk, madame.”

Right.

I would have had a bit more luck with the front desk if two officers hadn't been wrestling in a pair of belligerent drunks just as I arrived. One of the drunks managed to throw up over quite a wide area. Somehow, it seemed better to just keep going. I tossed the baggie with the butt into the car and drove to the Wallingford Estate.

Contributed by Hélène Lamontagne

2 bananas, split into 3 equal parts (lengthwise along the stem), cut into 2-inch pieces

⅓
cup halved macadamia nuts

⅓
cup rum

1 tablespoon butter

1-2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 martini glasses

French vanilla ice cream

1 fire extinguisher