Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (36 page)

People started to clap and cheer for the musicians. One of the poets, still wearing his raincoat, sang “The Wild Colonial Boy”, backed by the fiddle, the accordion and the clapping of guests. Bridget and I were the only two not singing along.

It made a heart-warming picture, except for one small problem. The killer knew that Benedict and I had a history. And except for my best buddy Liz, the only people in the world who had known anything about that history were right there in Bridget's beautiful home, singing.

“I can't believe you took her to Bridget's place. What were you thinking of?” Liz tipped my virgin bottle of Courvoisier over her snifter. “
I
didn't even get an invitation.”

“Don't pucker your face that way. You'll get more wrinkles.” While Liz was gasping, I added, “You couldn't stand him.”

“So what? I know Bridget. I like her.”

“But it was only close, close friends of Benedict.”

“Perfect. Such as Josey Thring, who never even laid eyes on Benedict. You let that girl wrap you around her little finger.”

“Do not.”

“Do so,” Liz said.

Josey's life is a struggle to survive despite her criminal, alcoholic and demented relatives. Why shouldn't I help her out when I can?

“Anyway, she prodded all the guests for gossip about Benedict.” I didn't mention the ten dollars or the fact that she didn't come up with any useful tidbits.

“I don't want to talk about it any more. I want to give you a bit of advice about your novel.”

“What advice?”

“Yes, well, I think your problems can be explained by sex.”

“What sex?”

“Exactly. That's what I'm trying to tell you. There's no sex in your life and never has been, so that's why...”

“No sex in my life? Never? May I point out I was married for twenty-three, count 'em, twenty-three years to you-knowwho.”

“I rest my case. Get that look off your face. I'm only trying to help you out. That's what friends are for. Get some sex in your life. Change your attitude. Fix yourself up a bit. Work from your strengths.”

“I have strengths?”

“Sure. Your hair colour. Men like that ashy blonde. And it doesn't show the grey. I'm sure if you made any kind of an effort at all, you could keep the curl under control.”

“Wait a minute...”

“Let me finish. You know what your best feature is?”

“Dewlaps?”

“Very funny. Eyes. Your eyes are your best feature. People pay good money to get that blue-violet colour in contact lenses. Try makeup. Play them up a bit.”

“I don't think...”

“That's right. You don't think. Now the main thing is to lop off a few pounds. Get from a size fourteen back to a size eight.”

“Are you crazy? It's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is to get from a size fourteen to an eight.”

“This is a serious business, Fiona. Give it some thought. Anyway, I can't sit around talking forever. I have a life.” She flung herself out of the beanbag chair and slipped her skinny little feet into her open-toed shoes. “Remember. Sex. That's the secret.”

Like I was in the mood.

If the door-answering system had existed, I might not have had to face Papa Bear Sarrazin looking like someone had eaten all his porridge. I was a bit long in the tooth for Goldilocks, but I had that weak-kneed feeling of being caught on the spot.

Tolstoy, on the other hand, was tickled by the visit.

Sarrazin seemed to feel quite at home. Why wouldn't he? The man had actually seen the contents of my underwear drawer. He casually wedged himself in the kitchen chair and narrowed his eyes. To add insult to injury, Tolstoy snuggled up to him and dropped the Frisbee at his feet.

Sarrazin wanted to talk about my relationship with Benedict. In case I had it wrong about not being involved for nearly eight years. He also wanted details of my activities for the past week.

“Are you sure you hadn't seen him recently?”

I was.

“And you haven't been in touch with him,
madame
?”

“Right.”

“Do you know what kind of car he drives?”

A trick question. The police would certainly know that. “The last time I saw him was about...”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“...he was driving along in some kind of antique MG convertible. I saw it from a distance.”

“Have you seen that car anywhere?”

“No, not for the last...”

“That's starting to get on my nerves.”

“What do I have to do? Write it in blood?”

“Which reminds me, the dry cleaners called us about your clothing.”

“That was chocolate mousse, and you know it. Your technicians already checked everything.” I couldn't afford to have my only decent outfit disappear into the St. Aubaine Sûreté's evidence room.

But this went beyond a wardrobe problem. I had the distinct impression nothing would suit F. X . Sarrazin quite so much as tidying the loose ends on this case by tossing me into the slammer. Which would explain why he was spending a perfectly good Sunday asking questions in my kitchen.

“I imagine I'll be back.” He left without smiling.

“I'm sorry, Phillip, that you have to call from San Francisco to express your disapproval. It's too bad you're embarrassed by the body in my boudoir, as you so amusingly call it. Imagine how I feel.” I'd learned much earlier to hold the receiver away from my ear. I should have learned not to pick up the phone.

“No, I did not have a long and passionate and incredibly sleazy affair with Benedict while we were married.”

Of course, the truth wasn't far from that. I'd had a long and passionate series of fantasies matched by frequent offers from Benedict, but when it came time for action, I'd wimped out. I'd turned down Benedict's last proposal to pinch Philip's new Audi and his credit cards and head for Montreal for a dirty weekend. Instead I'd applied myself to the task of making my marriage work. Go figure.

“No, I will not pick up the cost of your calls. If you don't want to pay, don't play.” I hung up in the middle of his response and went back to my cognac. Liz was examining her elbows in the living room mirror. I hoped she wouldn't sprain her neck.

“That's just Phillip trying to wear me down so he can offer me a reduced settlement.”

“Got to hand it to the man. He's a world class tightwad,” Liz said.

“Agreed, but Phillip doesn't really matter.” Only two people really mattered. F. X . Sarrazin, for the wrong reasons, such as his powers of arrest and his apparent belief that a corpse in the bedroom should lead to a quick slam of the jailhouse doors, and Bridget, who was definitely entitled to an explanation.

“Don't let him get to you.”

“I suppose I could get the telephone disconnected, although it might be handy to have in an emergency.”

“Funny. Now pay attention. Elbows. Take a gander.”

I peered at Liz's elbows. I didn't see anything unusual.

“What about them?”

“What about them? They're one of the sure signs of age, that's all. You can hide a lot of stuff with clothes or make-up or you can get surgery. But what the hell are you going to do about elbows that resemble miniature bloodhounds hanging off your arms?”

I could not recall having a single elbow thought in my life.

“Well?” she said. “How bad are they?”

What could I say? They fell short of the miniature bloodhound description, but they did have a certain shrivelled droopiness.

“Don't be such a coward. How many times have you spotted elbows like these and figured some woman was at least ten years older than she pretended?”

“Never.” For one thing, I didn't really care how old people were and whether they were pretending to be some other age. For another, all my life I've had enough trouble maintaining my beauty rituals of flossing my teeth, keeping my hair from exploding and hunting under my bed for my only tube of lipstick. This elbow thing sounded like a real nuisance.

“I'm doing something about them,” Liz said. “And the dewlaps.”

“Me, too.” Meaning I would, from that point on, never check my elbows. Which wouldn't present a problem. Avoiding the dewlaps might be a little trickier, since you could see them in the mirror. Unless you viewed the mirror dead straight on. Whatever works.

Liz helped herself to another cognac, perhaps in the belief the liver is not a barometer of beauty.

I had a coffee. I needed a clear head to make my plans to rid myself of the bothersome unknowns surrounding the Benedict-in-my-bed problem. I didn't want the conversation to drift back to some other deteriorating body part, so I changed topics.

“I can't believe he won that award. Can you?”

Liz shrugged. She picked up her cognac and headed back to the mirror to have another frown at her elbows.

“Who cares, Fiona? You know those things are always rigged.”

Rigged? Literary prizes are always rigged? I was stunned. Like so often in my life, once Liz left, her conversational droppings stayed around to smell up the atmosphere for hours.

Rigged? The Flambeau?

With a note of triumph, Montreal Directory Assistance informed me that Mme Velda Flambeau's home telephone number was unlisted. The Flambeau Foundation number was not.

The Flambeau Foundation responded to my request for more information about Benedict's win by asking me to state my name, the date and time and a brief yet meaningful message after the beep.

I stuck my head out the door and, spotting no media, made the trek a quarter mile down Chemin des Cèdres to the Lamontagnes'. Tolstoy came along for the walk, and I took the Frisbee. I tire of the Frisbee long before Tolstoy does, but there were other distractions for him. He likes to piddle his way up the long, elegant driveway leading to the two-storey grey stone building that tells you Jean-Claude Lamontagne has a shitload of money and isn't afraid to show it. Since Jean-Claude is never home in the day and rarely in the night, I felt I could visit without running into him and having to deflect yet another offer to purchase my property.

Hélène was a bit surprised when Tolstoy and I returned her recycled newspapers. “I hope they were useful.”

“Not as useful as you'll be. You know everything that goes on with the ritzy and glitzy. What's the real story on the Flambeau? Could it have been rigged?”

She lowered her voice although we were alone in the sixthousand square foot house. “
Oh là là
, Fiona. They are saying Mme Flambeau must have slept with Benedict Kelly to make such a crazy decision.”

“Slept with him? Ha ha. Isn't she about eighty?”

“
Oui
, that's what they're saying.
Et non
, she's not even sixty.”

“Have you never met her?” Sooner or later, Jean-Claude and Hélène meet everybody who is anybody in Quebec.

“No. But I hear from people who know that she is really
spéciale
.”

Meaning bizarre.

“I hope this doesn't upset you,” Hélène broke in.

“No, no, I hadn't seen him for seven years. Eight really.”

“And you seem so
dérangée
and after all...”

“Of course, I'm bothered. Benedict was murdered. You should hear the rumours about me. And I'm getting framed. Come to think of it, maybe Mme Flambeau was framed.”

“
Oh là là
.”

“Hélène. I'd like to talk to Mme Flambeau. Any idea of how to reach her?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you could...?”

“I would love to help, but I am very busy lining up volunteers to sell tickets to the One Act Play Competition. As soon as that's over, I will have time to make a few extra calls.”

“Right, well, you could put me down to sell a few tickets.”

“Ten?”

“Absolutely.” Ten is a lot of tickets when you think about it, especially if you're trying to unload them to my friends. “While I'm here, you know anything about this local poet Marc-André Paradis?”

“He is supposed to be very good. Very
émotif
. He has a car repair shop somewhere on
Autoroute
105, but that is all I know.”

I lit up. “Car repair? Excellent.”

I could understand why Mme Velma Flambeau, keeper of the Flambeau fortune, might want an unlisted number, but it seemed an unusual thing for a mechanic to have one. I was on my tenth attempt to find a telephone number for Marc-André Paradis when I decided on another strategy. I slipped into my old jean jacket, tucked my hair under a Blue Jays cap and started up the Skylark.

Five minutes later, I pulled into Auto Service Tom et Jerry, formerly Tom and Jerry's Service Station. I filled up the tank, although I wondered if that was an unwise investment considering the Skylark's terminal condition. Inside, I used my credit card to finance the unwise investment.

As soon as Tom recognized me, he swept a couple of newspapers underneath the counter and pulled out his spray container of Windex.

“Oh, hi, Fiona,” he said, “what's new?”

“Nothing at all.”

He blinked. Furtiveness did not become him.

“Tell me,” I said, “you guys ever hear of someone named Marc-André Paradis? Supposed to run a repair shop up the highway a bit.”

“Paradis? Yeah, he does high-end imports only.” He flicked a glance toward the Skylark.

“Not for me, of course. I'm happy with you guys. Naturally.” Not that my car runs right or anything.

“Not for you?”

“A friend was asking. She has a...Saab.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“She should try the Saab dealer then. Paradis only takes people on referral.” Tom's tone indicated he thought this was a pretty good idea. You could get a higher grade of customer. Not one driving a Skylark, for instance.