Lost and Fondue (26 page)

I’d given him the task of updating our website to reflect our special events. In addition, I wanted us to have links to the websites of American as well as international cheese makers, and I’d asked him to add links to some of our favorite blogs. It was a big undertaking, one that I expected would take him at least a month. Pépère, of course, would disapprove. He feared expanding the scope of our business would lessen our ability to tend to our local customers. I argued that all of our customers seemed quite content.

“It’s about Dane Cegielski and Edsel Nash,” Bozz said. “I wanted to see if they had criminal records.”

Great. Just what I needed. Another amateur sleuth working at The Cheese Shop. Soon I’d have to hang out a detective agency shingle.

“And did they?”

“I couldn’t find a thing. Guess I need a license to dig deeper. But I did find out they volunteered for Habitat for Humanity.” He smirked. “Who knew they had it in them, huh?”

He didn’t like those two, but why should he? They had accused him of murdering their friend. On the other hand, I didn’t want Bozz thinking the worst of everyone and becoming a cynic. He had such a low-key nature.

I said, “Which means they’re just like you.”

“Sort of.”

“You donate your time to Reading is Fundamental.”

“Yeah, but—” He scuffed the toe of his shoe into the floor.

“Lots of kids give back to society, Bozz, not only the kids at your school.”

“Guess so. You’re right. I shouldn’t judge, it’s just—” He plopped another bite of fondue into his mouth and mumbled, “You’re right.”

I rose and strolled into the washroom that abutted the office. After any interactions with Rags, I made it a point to clean up before returning to the counter. Bozz finished his snack, then peeled Rags off of his shoulders, followed my lead into the washroom, and headed back to the shop.

In the doorway, he paused. “Do you like Philby?”

“She seems nice.”

“We’re working on a history project together. Genealogy.” He furrowed his forehead. “Gee, I hope we’re not related.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It was a joke, Ms. B. Lighten up. Besides, we don’t look a thing alike.” He snorted.

“Very funny.” I tilted my head. “Oh, I should tell you that I hired her.”

Bozz grinned like there was no tomorrow. “To work here?”

“To sit the girls tonight.”

He shrugged. Mr. Cool. “You know, she’d probably like a job at Fromagerie Bessette this summer, if you could swing it.”

In your dreams, lover boy.
If I hired Philby, I wouldn’t get zilch out of Bozz, he’d be so starry-eyed.

“We’ll see,” I said.

When I rejoined Rebecca at the counter, Fromagerie Bessette was bustling with a group of tourists wearing matching tour shirts. The flock chattered about the great purchases they’d made that day throughout Providence—exquisite antiques, excellent wines, handmade pottery and quilts. I was thrilled that our little town was prospering.

I said, “Rebecca, are you okay on your own at the counter? I’m going to load the slate boards with cheese selections.”

She nodded.

Moments later, Pépère entered the shop. He stowed his umbrella in the brass stand by the door and strutted across the shop, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. He rounded the cheese counter and gave a proud cluck of his tongue.

“What did you do?” I loved when my grandfather felt he’d pulled off something clever. “Did you sneak out the back of the theater without Grandmère seeing you?”

“Not only that. I picked up these along the way.” He revealed a handful of Prudence Hart’s horrible flyers.

“You sly dog.” I kissed both cheeks. “Just for that, you get a slice of Edelweiss Emmental.” I plucked a piece of the firm but pliable cheese from one of the slate boards I was preparing.

“I had helpers, too,” Pépère said.

Gretel, Octavia, and Ipo marched in, all drenched from the rain. I giggled. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was silly enough to leave home without an umbrella.

“That Prudence Hart!” Octavia sputtered. She waved soggy flyers. “She continues to put these up, despite Chief Urso’s warning.”

“Pfft!” Rebecca set a wheel of UnieKaas five-year-aged Gouda on the counter. “People think Prudence is certifiable.” She wielded a ten-inch carving knife and waggled it in the air. “I’ve heard folks talking all over town.”

“Let’s not fuel the fire.” I caught Ipo staring at Rebecca and nudged her with my hip. “Did you set your first date with our hunky honeybee farmer?”

“I did. He’s taking me to the pub, and if that works out, we’re going horseback riding.”

She couldn’t hide her joy. The cotton candy flush that suffused her cheeks revealed all. A warm glow radiated through me at the realization that with the onset of spring came new love. I hoped my romantic getaway with Jordan would secure ours. If he still wanted to go. With Jacky in possible peril, I feared he would change his mind.

“Charlotte!” Lois bustled through the knot of tourists, her face nearly as purple as her raincoat. Had she run the whole way from Lavender and Lace? She shrugged the hood off her hair. Raindrops flew everywhere. “We need to talk.”

I moved from behind the counter and drew her toward a barrel stacked with a tower of pesto jars. “What’s up?”

“I saw you,” she said in a hushed, accusatory tone. Her bad eye blinked rapidly.

My pulse kicked up a notch. Had she seen me spying on Freddy from my bedroom the other night? She couldn’t be referring to my covert lattice-climbing adventure or she would have mentioned it earlier.

“Actually, I didn’t see you. My husband did.”

The Cube? Oh, lord. I didn’t want to imagine why the Cube would be watching me in my bedroom late at night.

“Actually, he didn’t really see you, either. Mr. Nash did.”

“Edsel?”

She nodded. “He told my husband that you were snooping in Mr. Vance’s room, don’t you know.”

Aha. Edsel must have been the one I’d heard tiptoeing outside the bedroom door. Unless he’d raced outside, he hadn’t actually
seen
me. I could try to lie my way out of this, but Lois was waving a finger. She seemed to have something else to say.

“You believe Mr. Vance lied to Chief Urso,” she continued sotto voce. “You went to find out if he had that stolen artwork in his suitcase, didn’t you?”

I remained mum, silently pleading the fifth.

“You didn’t crack the combination, am I right?” She offered a smug smile. “Well, I did, don’t you know.” She folded her arms proudly across her chest. “I found Harker Fontanne’s artwork.”

It took all my effort to keep my voice in check. “Are you sure it’s his?”

“Sure as rain.” She crossed her heart. With a flourish, she whipped out her cell phone and stabbed the cell phone’s screen. “See?” A photo emerged. “Mr. Fontanne’s signature is on every piece. But ...” She held the pause for a full half minute. “... it’s not the same artwork I saw in his portfolio. These are purely scenery paintings. No portraits.”

What had Freddy done with the rest of Harker’s work? Had he destroyed the portraits? Why?

I steered Lois to the cheese counter. “Let me handle this with Chief Urso, okay, Lois?” I scooted around Rebecca, who stood at the register, completing a sale. “In the meantime, would you like a slice of Etorki cheese? You’re going to love it.” It was a cheese I regularly used on pizzas for the twins.

“But—”

“Take a look at this, Mrs. Smith,” Rebecca said, offering a quick wave of her fingers to the departing customer and zeroing in on Lois. “It’s just the kind of cheese you like; creamy but firm.” She held up a large wedge of Etorki and brandished a knife. “It’s sheep’s milk from the Pyrenees with a burnt caramel flavor.”

Lois licked her lips in anticipation. She was a sucker for free cheese of any kind, having fallen in love with cheese when she discovered she could have a little taste and not lose her slender figure. Everything in moderation, I told customers who were worried about the calories in cheese. If one eats too much of anything—even broccoli—one can put on weight. Well, maybe not broccoli.

As Rebecca sliced the Etorki, she tilted her head and gave me a
what’s going on
look. I mimed that I’d fill her in later. I hurried to the wine annex, which was packed with wine-tasting hopefuls. Matthew was wiping down the wine bar.

I said, “Are the twins with Philby?”

“Yep. Amy and Clair took to her like ducks to water.”

“Good.” When I’d hired Philby, I’d given her the sparest of details about Sylvie’s habit of showing up unannounced. Philby suggested she take the twins to her house and cleared it with her folks. Her father was an ex-Marine. Nobody messed with him.

I scanned the crowd. “Where did Meredith and Freddy go?”

“They left to visit Quinn.”

“Shoot!” I dashed to the sidewalk and caught sight of them passing The Spotted Giraffe, a children’s boutique just beyond What’s In Store. Thankfully the rain had abated and was no more than a drizzle, though a second wave of the storm was imminent. I hustled toward them yelling, “Meredith!”

I wasn’t sure she’d heard me, because the
clip-clop
of an Amish horse-drawn buggy, moving slowly along the side of the street, drowned out my voice.

“Meredith, hold up!”

She turned and looked pleased to see me. I couldn’t say the same for Freddy.

When I reached them, near the south corner of the Congregational Church, Meredith said, “We’re off to see Quinn. Want to join us?” She reached to me for moral support. I squeezed her hand then released it. “What’s wrong?” she said, obviously sensing my concern.

“Freddy lied,” I blurted. No preamble. No hedging. No soft-soap sell. So unlike me.

Meredith glanced at her brother. He turned three shades of gray.

“You deliberately misled Urso about Harker’s art, Freddy,” I said.

“What is she talking about?” Meredith pursed her lips. “Don’t you have those photographs you mentioned?”

“He does,” I said. “But he also has some of Harker Fontanne’s artwork locked in his suitcase.” I told them about Lois’s raid and the incriminating photographs on her cell phone.

“That’s an illegal search!” Freddy sputtered. The color returned to his face, this time three shades of red.

“So you’re not denying it.”

Freddy slammed a fist into his palm. “I didn’t steal anything. You have to believe me. What I have is not the stuff that was in Harker’s portfolio. I don’t know where that went. Edsel’s probably right, Harker tossed it.”

A group of teenagers singing in four-part harmony, choir robes slung over their arms, ambled around us and continued toward the church.

Over the crooning, I said, “Freddy, you dismissed Edsel when he said that. In fact, you were adamant that Harker wouldn’t have abandoned his art.”

“If it’s not the missing artwork, what
do
you have?” Meredith’s voice trembled with worry.

Freddy opened his mouth and shut it. After a long moment, he said, “Harker and I had an agreement. We made it about two months ago. He would let me use some of his art as samples to teach certain techniques.”

“His samples,” I said.

“That’s right. In return, I wouldn’t give him a rough time about dating Quinn.”

“Other than school protocol, why would you give him a rough time?” I asked.

“He had a bad rep with girls. He loved ’em and left ’em. I didn’t want that for Quinn. She throws herself into a relationship heart and soul, like”—his shoulders slumped forward—“like me. I was afraid he’d break her heart.”

“But in the end, you agreed to let them date,” I said, guiding him to the truth. “They became a couple. They fell in love.”

“And look what happened.” Freddy sucked back a sob.

“Quinn did not kill Harker,” Meredith said, her voice sharp, tense. “I’m sure of it.”

I eyed Freddy. “Did you kill him?”

“I wanted to.”

Meredith thumped Freddy’s arm with a fierceness I’d never seen from her. “Don’t say such a thing!”

A stark silence fell between us. Freddy jammed his left hand into his pocket. Within seconds, his fingers started worrying the lining, just like before, and a jolt of suspicion shot through me. Whenever I fibbed, my mouth fell open a teensy bit and my eyes turned dull.
Bad habits are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry
, Warren Buffett claimed—a quote from one of the inspirational books my grandmother had given me, though why it was inspirational was beyond me.

I said, “Freddy, on the night of the murder, you lied at the winery when Urso questioned you.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“When you lie, you do that thing with your hand. You’re doing it now.”

With a shrug of surrender, he wiggled his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and held it out to me. “I play with my phone. Sue me.”

“C’mon, Freddy, be straight,” Meredith said.

“I am being straight.”

“You don’t want me to call the boys,” she threatened. The
boys
were her other brothers—both younger, both meatier than Freddy. Did she consider them enforcers? Could they bully Freddy into a confession?

“Did you lie at the winery?” I said. “Did you really see Harker fight with Bozz or were you someplace else?”

“You mean, was I lurking in the cellar?” Freddy asked through tight teeth. “Waiting for my chance to kill him? C’mon, Charlotte. You sound like a dime store novelist.” He stretched his jaw. “No, I did not build the frigging wall. Yes, I saw Bozz and Harker fight. After my argument with Harker, I went out for a smoke. I called my wife—my ex. Check the times. I don’t erase calls. We must have talked for forty-five minutes.”

“That’s not a good enough alibi,” I said. “You could have dialed your wife, reached her answering machine, and left your telephone on.”