Lost and Fondue (29 page)

“You’re in.”

“So we are,” Rebecca said as she and Octavia joined me.

I glanced at the sealed suitcase standing beside the bed—the zipper and thud I’d heard. As suspected, Winona was ready to run.

Winona pivoted and strolled to us, leaving the door ajar. “I said I’m busy. What’s up?”

“Leaving town?” Rebecca asked.

“I have a couple of board meetings to attend. I asked Chief Urso if it was all right. He said he was ready to wrap up the case and didn’t need me any longer. Not that I have to report to you, but you seem interested.” Winona tilted her head back and peered down the length of her aquiline nose at Rebecca and Octavia, then turned her gaze on me. “So-o-o-o, Charlotte.” She dragged out the words in her divalike way. “Are you here to wish me a good trip?”

“What boards do you sit on?” I glanced at the suitcase again, prepared to hunker down on it if that’s what it would take to keep her there. “That regional theater in Cleveland, I presume.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How do you know about that?”

“I like to keep abreast of all the people who come to town.” Another lie. I was getting good. Any day now, Grandmère would ask me to star in one of her plays. Actors needed to be expert liars.

Winona strutted toward me, one hand still anchored at her hip. “What else do you know about me, Charlotte?”

“You went to Northwestern. You were an actress before you became an heiress, and you have a sister named Julianne.”

That stopped her cold.

“You and she won ballroom dancing competitions,” Rebecca chimed in.

“My, my. Did you get all that from your iPhone?”

Octavia dumped her cell phone into the side pocket of her purse.

Winona sneered. “You don’t know my entire résumé. Did you also know that I was a journalist? I wrote articles for the
Cleveland Plain Dealer.
And I was a photographer. I had photos displayed in
National Geographic.
” She walked a circle around the three of us. “I like rare steak and dry red wine, and I hate anything vanilla.”

She sniffed. I hadn’t used any eau de vanilla this morning. Perhaps the scent had clung to my clothes from a previous spritz. “Did Harker Fontanne know you and Julianne were sisters?” I asked.

“He didn’t have a clue. We have different last names. Different fathers. We were five years apart in age. What else do you want to know?”

“Julianne committed suicide.”

“That appeared on page twelve of the
Plain Dealer
. It wasn’t earth-shattering. It didn’t make page one.” Winona’s voice held an undercurrent of loathing. “What else do you want to ask?”

Rebecca inched ahead of the group. “Did you kill Harker Fontanne?”

I gasped as Winona reared up like a snake, hand raised as if she was going to strike. I tugged Rebecca by the collar of her ruffled shirt and pulled her back a foot.

“You have gall,” Winona hissed. “Coming in here, accusing me.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Octavia and Rebecca said in unison.

“Jewels were strewn around Harker’s body,” I said, in for a penny, in for a pound. If she lashed out, I’d duck. “Symbolic jewels. Your sister was involved with Harker. Her nickname was Jules.”

Winona barked out a laugh. “Involved? Is that the word you used?
Involved
? They were engaged, my nosy friends. They were going to be married. They’d set a date.” Winona sucked back a sob. “But then he met Quinn Vance.” She dragged the word out. “He threw Julianne over for that little redheaded bimbette, did you know that? Threw her over! I like Freddy, but really, his daughter is such an airhead.”

“No, she’s not,” Rebecca said.

I gripped her arm to silence her as I reflected on what Winona had revealed. Harker and Julianne were set to get married. Quinn said the ring Harker had given her was a hand-me-down. Did she know he’d given it to Julianne first? When she found out, did she kill Harker in a fit of jealousy? Did she stuff the ring into his hand?

No. I refused to believe Quinn was the murderer. Winona had framed her.

I said, “You tried to pin Harker’s murder on Quinn Vance by planting that ring in his palm.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The ring. The evidence,” Rebecca said.

“Are you saying you found Jules’s ring?” Winona asked, her face suddenly vulnerable. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

“Chief Urso found it,” I said. “You planted it on Harker.”

“I did no such thing. I didn’t—” Winona flicked away the tears that had trickled down her face and took a menacing step toward us. “I want that ring.”

It was Rebecca’s turn to pull me out of the line of fire.

“Oh, my!” Lois said from the doorway. She flung a hand over her mouth. Her partially blind eye blinked furiously.

“Everything okay in here?” the Cube said, hovering protectively beside her.

Winona lowered her arm and snarled. “Come on in, folks. Why not invite the whole town? I was just telling Ms. Nosey-Nose and her friends that I did not kill Harker Fontanne.”

“Your sister committed suicide,” I pressed. “You blamed him.”

“Jules was emotionally fragile. She was an artist, did you know that?” Winona painted an imaginary canvas in front of her. “Acrylics. Wild, exotic acrylics. Georgia O’Keeffe good. She had a future, but she threw it all away for him. She wanted him to be the star.”

“You blamed him,” I said.

“Darned right, I did. He could have encouraged her to keep painting. He didn’t have to break her spirit and her heart.”

“And you killed him. You threw the jewels on the floor. You built that wall to show how emotionally blocked he was.”

“Me, build a wall? You’ve got to be kidding.” She flashed her perfectly manicured fingernails at me. “I don’t even garden.”

“You signed on to be a donor for the college right after the art gathering was announced.”

“That’s right,” Rebecca said. She had been the one to share that tidbit with me. “You knew Harker would be here.”

Winona raised her shoulders as she drew in a long breath. She let it out in a gust. “Want to know the truth?”

“You bet we do,” Rebecca said.

“Fine. I signed on for this ridiculous trip so that I could punish him.”

“Punish him?” I said.

“For being so cavalier.”

I gaped at her. “You strangled him.”

“Strangulation is an extreme act of punishment,” Octavia said.

Lois and the Cube bobbed their heads. A panel of Winona’s peers couldn’t have been more judgmental.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, I did not strangle him.” Winona sighed, as if the act of explaining to a room full of idiots was exhausting. “The best place to hit Harker was in the art. That’s right, the
art
. He loved his art. He would do anything for his art. I stole it from his portfolio.”

“You stole it?” Rebecca said.

“Before he was murdered.” Winona hoisted her suitcase onto the bed and unzipped it. On top of her clothing lay a thick brown envelope, about twenty inches by thirty inches—the same size as the leather portfolio we’d seen in Harker’s room. She ripped open the Velcro latch and pulled out the contents—unframed canvases of Harker’s artwork. She placed them on the bedspread. There were eight of them. Each was breathtakingly poignant and signed by Harker Fontanne. Freddy and Rebecca had said that whoever took the artwork had the best motive to kill Harker. The posthumous artwork would sell big on the open market. Harker hadn’t been famous, but with his talent and an aggressive representative, he might have become famous. But Winona, being an heiress, didn’t need the money.

“You stole the art to hinder his career,” I said. “Having to paint new paintings would be time-consuming.”

“Oh, please. That would be so mundane. I stole these pieces so he could never touch them.”

I assessed the artwork again. Quinn said Harker had carried the portfolio everywhere. Why? Four of the pieces were landscapes; the others were portraits of a woman. They weren’t of Quinn.

I glanced at Winona, suddenly seeing the truth. “Are those portraits of your sister?”

Winona smiled a canary-in-the-mouth grin.

“Why didn’t you tell Chief Urso?”

“For the same reason that’s ticking away in your mind.” Winona wagged a finger. “Don’t deny it. I can see your eyes flickering. A thief could make millions selling the art on the open market once Harker’s genius is realized.” She collected the art and slid them back into the envelope. “I’m not keeping them. I plan to give them to a museum.”

Rebecca muttered, “I’ll bet.”

Octavia said, “Yeah, right.”

I shut out the murmurs of my companions and focused on the other thing that was bothering me. “Why were you arguing with Dane the other day?”

Winona threw me a sour look. “The kid made a play for me. I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn’t date anybody younger than me.”

“How long have you known him?”

“I only met him on this trip.” Winona’s gaze darted down and to the right, and then back to me. A psychology course I took in college taught me about eye signals. She was covering up something.

“I don’t believe you.”

Winona pursed her lips, as if weighing her options. Finally she said, “Dane knew about Julianne and Harker. He said he pegged me for her sister because we looked so much alike.” Winona shook her head. “It was a line of bull, of course. We looked nothing alike. I’m dark and big. She was fair and slight. We have the same swoop to our hair, the same nose—got both traits from our mom—but that’s it.”

“Harker must have figured out who you were and told Dane,” I said.

“That’s my guess.”

“Did Dane accuse you of killing Harker?”

“I assured him that I didn’t. I told him I was here to ruin Harker, to humiliate him. He said my secret was safe.” She jutted her chin. “I think he was ingratiating himself to me so I’d cave in and grant him a date.”

“Did you?”

“No!” Her diva voice soared to a crescendo. “And don’t get me started about that little creep, Edsel Nash.”

I recalled Dane arguing with Edsel outside The Cheese Shop and imagined what his teachers must have written repeatedly on his report cards:
Doesn’t play well with peers.
Edsel probably received the same kind of commentary.

“What about him?” I said.

“Never mind.” Winona folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head.

“Did you know Edsel and Dane had an argument?”

“It had nothing to do with me.”

Which meant she knew about it.

She glanced at the clock again. “If you don’t mind, I have a train to catch.”

The sound of footsteps running along the hall made me turn. Lois and her husband scuttled sideways as Urso burst into the room, his slicker and hat dripping wet.

“What the heck is going on?” he barked.

I gave him a twenty-second account. When I finished, Winona proclaimed her innocence yet again.

I said, “Tell her you believe her, Chief, as long as she tells us everything about Edsel Nash.”

Winona gave me the evil eye.

“You’re the one who brought him up,” I said.

Winona’s fingers tapped a rhythm on her biceps. “Fine. The kid said he saw me take the portfolio. He was blackmailing me.”

Neither Dane nor Edsel was at the inn. Lois hadn’t seen them for hours. Urso said he would find them.

Before leaving Winona’s room, Urso cautioned Winona not to leave Providence. He threatened to arrest her if she did. On the B&B’s front porch, he also gave a warning to Rebecca, Octavia, and me. “Keep away from the investigation.”

“C’mon, U-ey,” I said.

“Don’t ‘U-ey’ me. You approached a murder suspect alone.”

“I wasn’t alone.”

Rebecca and Octavia raised tentative hands to signal their existence.

Urso frowned. “Promise me.”

Playing the properly chastised citizen, I said, “I promise that I will not do anything rash.”

He grunted his disapproval.

“I called you, remember?” I said. “I didn’t want Winona to flee. I acted quickly and responsibly. I also had two friends with me, and I knew there were people at the inn. Didn’t you see Lois and her husband? They clung to us like shadows.”

Urso grabbed my elbow and drew me to the railing. The rain, once again no more than a drizzle, splattered my hair, but I didn’t protest. Urso peered into my face, his gaze concerned, his forehead furrowed. I worried for a moment he might lean forward and kiss me. A flock of birds in the leafless vines twittered, as if sharing my concern.

Don’t, don’t, don’t kiss me.
A kiss would ruin our friendship.
Don’t, please.
A swarm of panicky butterflies fluttered wildly in my stomach.

As if intuiting my prayerful advice, Urso stood taller and said, “Your family can’t afford to lose you. Your future family as well as your present, got me?” He kept his gaze on me for a long moment, and then he traipsed down the inn’s steps to his patrol car.

After I bid my friends good night, I retrieved my umbrella and trotted toward home, wondering about my future. Would it be with Jordan? Why hadn’t he returned my call about Jacky? Was I making a big mistake banking my heart on him? Perhaps that was what Grandmère feared. Perhaps that was why she favored Urso. She felt he was a better longrange choice for me. But did I want stability or passion?

I whipped out my cell phone, prepared to call Jordan, and noticed a missed call on the readout—from him. I listened to the message.

Jordan said, “Thanks for the heads-up about my sis. I’ll check it out. On another note, my bags are packed. Are yours?” He laughed, blew a kiss, and ended the call.

As I stowed my cell phone, I glanced at the sky and imagined the stars behind the clouds. On the biggest, I made the kind of wish heaven reserved for children:
Make this man say he loves me.