Set the Stage for Murder (16 page)

“
You know,” Caroline said in Phoebe’s ear, “I’m not all that terribly fond of Meg Pierce, but how she’s put up with that monster all these years is a mystery to me.”

Phoebe inclined her head toward the other woman. “I suppose there are those friendships that defy explanation.” She said it almost as a question, inviting the other woman to continue verbalizing her feelings.

Caroline snorted and took a long swallow of her single malt scotch. “That’s for bloody well sure. Can you just imagine how being raised in that household has warped Juliet?” She pointed to the girl with her old-fashioned glass. “Look at her. Look how she’s mooning over that boy at the other end of the porch. Why doesn’t she just sleep with him, for God’s sake, and get on with it?” She took another sip of her scotch. “I’ll tell you why not. It’s because those two,” she pointed her glass at Roz and Meg,
those two
have her convinced that the bloody Virgin Mary will crash through the ceiling and rip her throat out if she does.” She finished off her drink with one more swig. “You’ll not find a more dysfunctional home than that one, I bloody well guarantee you.” She looked at Sally and realized for the first time that the boy’s mother had heard everything she just said. If Dame Caroline Dupree were the sort to become embarrassed, she probably would have done so at that moment. Fortunately, she was unencumbered by that particular emotion, especially after two drinks. “Oh, Hallo. Sorry if I said anything to offend.” She caught Vincent’s eye and held up her glass.

Sally smiled and shook her head. “No, you didn’t offend me, Dame Caroline. In fact, I agree with you whole-heartedly.” She glanced at her son and followed his gaze to the other end of the porch where Juliet stood looking back. “I think those two would make a wonderful couple.” She looked back at Phoebe and Caroline with a flintiness in her eyes that neither woman had noticed before. “Unfortunately, Roz has seen to it that it can never happen. She’s ruined my son’s life just as surely as she’s ruined Juliet’s.” She stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to return to my room for a moment.” They watched her start to leave the veranda and then stop and turn back to glare at Roz before leaving through the French door.

“Well if Rosamund ends up with a knife in her back, I think I know where to send the detectives,” Caroline said as she took a sip of the scotch Vincent had just provided her. Vincent and Phoebe shared a look. “Not that I would ever give her up, mind you. No, she’d be a bloody heroine in my book.” Phoebe sighed quietly and wished Teddy hadn’t been so adamantly opposed to her wearing a wire this evening. These were definitely the sorts of revelations one wanted to capture on tape.

***

Vicki had gone to the kitchen under the pretext of supervising dinner, which, admittedly, was a pretty weak guise. Marc Denby didn’t require, nor would he tolerate, supervision. What he did require, was information. It was killing him to be stuck in the kitchen while the drama played out in another room. Vicki had promised to stop in and give him updates whenever possible. She was leaning against the counter next to the stove, telling him how Roz was clearly keeping Meg by her side for some reason, when Meg walked through the kitchen door, all by herself, with no Roz in sight.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said. “Hello, Marc. Something smells wonderful.”

“Hello, Meg. Thank you.”

Meg looked around nervously and a little lost, as if she’d forgotten her lines. Finally she took a deep breath and seemed to compose herself. “Vicki, I was wondering if I could speak to you. In private.” She looked at Marc apologetically.

He shrugged his shoulders and returned to stirring his pot. “Help yourselves, although you’ll have to go somewhere else. I’m chained to this stove until this sauce is done.”

Vicki couldn’t believe her luck. One of her goals for the evening was to get Meg alone and pump her for information, and now the situation had fallen into her lap. She smiled and gestured to the back staircase. “Why don’t we go up to my bedroom? No one will disturb us there.”

“
I’m going to need your advice about the pork medallions, later,” Marc said, without looking up from his saucepan. Vicki smiled to herself as she ascended the staircase. That was Chef Danby’s coded language for “
you’d damn well better come back and tell me what this is all about.”
She just hoped that Meg hadn’t figured it out.

Vicki led the other woman to her bedroom and shut the door behind them. After offering Meg a seat on the small divan near the window, Vicki sat quietly with her arm on the back of the sofa and her head tilted slightly to one side, inviting her guest to say what was on her mind. Hopefully, she had adopted a serene look that belied the butterflies in her stomach.

Fortunately, this cozy scenario was all Meg needed to prompt her to talk. This was clearly information she wanted to share. “Vicki, I know that you and Teddy know about what’s going on with Roz and the threatening notes.”

“Notes?” Vicki asked. “As in plural, Meg?”

“Yes,” the other woman admitted, visibly relaxing a bit. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you.” She opened her purse, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to Vicki. “Roz received another one, although she doesn’t think anyone knows.”

“What do you mean?” Vicki asked, taking the note gingerly.

“She threw this in the wastebasket, but I fished it out.” She smiled slightly in response to Vicki’s questioning look. “I always go through the wastebasket by Roz’s desk. I learned long ago that she’s liable to throw out anything, including checks and money.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “She gets distracted easily, what can I say?”

Vicki unfolded the note and read it. Like the previous one, it contained a crude drawing of two tragedy masks.

“
Tick tock?” Vicki asked, looking up at Meg.

Meg got up from the divan and started pacing around the bedroom, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I suppose he’s saying her time is running out or something?” She stopped moving and looked at Vicki. Her eyes were full of fear.

“He?” Vicki asked. “So you think a man is behind this?”

Meg turned away from Vicki’s gaze. “I don’t know. It could be. But then again, it could be anyone. You saw what it was like down there when we arrived. Roz has made enemies all over the place. Truthfully, Vicki, it could be anyone here. And, there’s more.”

Vicki took a deep breath. “What do you mean, Meg?

Meg stood for a moment, looking out the window and deciding whether or not to tell Vicki what she knew. Finally she turned around. “Roz is playing a very dangerous game this evening.”

Vicki looked confused. “A game?”

“Yes,” Meg said. “At least, I think so. She hasn’t confided anything in me, but I think she’s going to try and make her enemy show his, or her, hand.”

Vicki looked at the frightened woman standing in her bedroom and then back down at the note in her hand. A note that was clearly the product of a mind twisted by evil or vengeance. “Meg, we have to try and stop her.”

“Vicki,” Meg began, shaking her head, “no one has ever stopped Roz Whiting from doing what she wants to do. No, she’s dead set on this and we can’t stop her.”

“Then why did you tell me this?”

“Because I can’t take care of her by myself. Not now. Not in this situation. I need your help.”

Vicki nodded. “I’m going to show this note to Teddy. He needs to know about this.”

“Naturally,” Meg agreed. She closed her eyes and exhaled for a long time, as if she’d been holding her breath for days. “Oh Vicki, I feel so much better after telling you this.”

Vicki only wished she could say the same thing.

Chapter 15

Vicki had presided over many dinners since becoming the mistress of Lenore’s Folly. She was well versed in the art of seating arrangement, and even if that were not the case, she had at her disposal the advice of a mother-in-law who was considered to be one of the country’s most seasoned hostesses. Between the two of them they could have sat a harmonious table even if the guest list included the widowed Mrs. Lincoln and members of the Booth family. Which is why the composition of tonight’s table had proved so challenging. The two women, along with the men of Lenore’s Folly had designed, quite deliberately, the most disastrous seating plan imaginable. And if they were being honest, the process had been more than a little amusing. In the future, when any of them thought back to this weekend, they would remember the planning session and marvel that there had actually been laughter and lightheartedness on a day that would end so tragically.

Before the guests were seated for dinner, Vicki had managed to show the note to Teddy and tell him everything Meg had said. She also had been able to share the information with Marc in the kitchen and he, in turn, filled in Ethan and Vincent when they came in to start serving. In a move he considered rather ingenious, Teddy called the landline at the Cottage from his cell phone and instructed Ethan to tell his mother that she had a call. As he gave her the new information, Phoebe nodded and suggested, in a voice that was a little too loud, that he “phone Mr. MacGuffin in the London office tomorrow morning.”

“Mr. MacGuffin, mother?” Teddy responded with a laugh. “Why don’t you just tell everyone that Lord Peter Wimsey is on the phone? You’d better hope there aren’t any Hitchcock fans in the room.”

Before she could think of an appropriate retort, Ethan announced that dinner was being served in the dining room. She hung up the receiver and gave her son “the look” as he walked down the staircase, flipped his cell phone closed, and nodded to her, smirk firmly in place. He offered his arm and escorted her into the dining room, chuckling softly as he pulled out a chair situated at the middle of the rectangular table where the card with her name had been placed. According to their design, she was to sit at the table’s most strategic position, with the best view of all the other guests. Although she might be a little green and overzealous at private investigating, Phoebe had many years of experience in the finer arts of listening and observing, skills she had honed and used to her advantage as a doyenne of society and a board member of McDowell Financial. She was sitting between Connor and Juliet, so that she might become aware of whatever feelings were stirring between the two of them. Also, she was directly across from Roz, who had been purposefully placed between Tony and Caroline. Chances were that the spark for this evening’s fireworks would come from that particular arrangement, and Phoebe would have the best seat in the house. Naturally, Vicki and Teddy were seated at either end of the table. Vicki had Meg and Ed on either side of her, while Sally and Billy were at Teddy’s end of the table. In a move that shocked no one, Harold Fiske decided to retire early and skip the evening meal altogether, insuring that there were twelve gathered for dinner, instead of the unlucky thirteen that had been expected. As it turns out, twelve people around the table can be a portent of doom as well, if one of those people is intent on committing murder.

Vicki smiled graciously and managed to appear oblivious of the looks of surprise and consternation that appeared on her guests’ faces as they found their place cards and realized each of them was seated in something akin to enemy territory and separated from his or her closest ally. Only two of the people at the table appeared to be totally fine with the arrangement. One was Billy, who seemingly didn’t have a stake in the proceedings and was happy to sit just about anywhere as long as someone else was footing the bill. The other person, not surprisingly, was Roz, who, as Vicki had just learned, had a very specific goal for the evening that this sort of seating chaos might very well facilitate. As far as she was concerned, the more off balance things were, the better. And nothing could be more off balance than Roz sitting between her ex-husband and his current wife, especially after the events of the past several days. In her first attempt to add fuel to an already raging fire, Roz stood behind her chair and looked at Tony adoringly until he jumped up and held it out for her. As she sat down and he pushed her chair forward, Dame Caroline, to her immediate left, openly ignored the first Mrs. Dupree, all the while turning an unflattering shade of red that suggested she was just seconds away from a paralyzing stroke. However, the moment passed without incident or comment and as the table visibly relaxed, Vicki gave the okay for Ethan, Vincent, Kim, and Marie to serve the appetizer. Unfortunately, the crab cakes, as well as the excellent main course that followed were only nibbled at by most of the guests who instead concentrated on drinking copious amounts of alcohol. It seemed that Ethan and Vincent were in perpetual motion around the table all evening, constantly refilling wine glasses.