Steamed to Death (12 page)

Gigi drove slowly down High Street, dreading the moment when Declan’s would come into view. Her feelings were in a complete state of tumult. Her heart beat just a bit faster when Mertz was around, and she found him incredibly attractive, but so far he had shown no interest in taking their relationship beyond casual acquaintance.

She certainly found Declan McQuaid attractive as well, but Gigi guessed him to be the “here today, and gone tomorrow” type no matter what Sienna said. And she’d already had more than enough of that with Ted.

Gigi reluctantly pulled into the tiny parking lot between Declan’s and Gibson’s Hardware next door. Mertz’s Crown Vic was nowhere in sight.

Gigi pushed open the front door and a rush of air, scented with the aroma of roasting meat and browning garlic and onions, wafted over her. Declan was in his accustomed spot behind the bar, and Gigi avoided his eye as she scanned the room for Mertz.

Suddenly Declan appeared at her elbow. “Lovely to see you again.” He gave her a smile that made her feel woozy.

He put a hand toward Gigi, and she instinctively flinched.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, but there’s a leaf caught in your beautiful hair.” He leaned closer and plucked a brown-tinged maple leaf from Gigi’s locks.

“See?” He handed it to Gigi. “I’ve only dated one or two redheads in my life.” He leaned against the hostess stand, and the look he gave Gigi made her feel as if they were the only two in the room. “But they were always a lot of fun. Up for the moment, you know what I mean? Maybe one of these days we could . . .”

Gigi heard someone clear his throat, and they both turned to see Mertz standing a foot away. He moved closer until his elbow was nearly touching Gigi’s.

“Could we have a table please?”

Declan gave Gigi a rueful smile. “Certainly.” He grabbed two menus from the hostess stand. “If you’ll follow me.”

“There’s something about that fellow,” Mertz grumbled as he looked over his menu at Declan’s departing back.

Gigi unfurled her napkin and put it in her lap. Was Mertz
jealous
? she wondered. He still hadn’t asked her out, although he’d hinted often enough that he found her attractive. Maybe this would be the push he needed?

Mertz slapped his menu closed. “I’m going to have the roast beef. At least there are things on this menu I recognize. Not like when it was that Eye-talian place.”

A retort nearly burst from Gigi’s lips, but she quelled it in time.

“What are you going to have?”

“I don’t know. I had a big lunch, and it’s not nearly dinnertime yet.”

“I didn’t have any lunch, and who knows if I’ll get dinner. The sorry lot of the policeman.”

Gigi looked at him sharply.

“You’re supposed to feel sorry for me.” Mertz made a comically sad face.

“Don’t worry, I do, I do.” Gigi laughed.

Mertz gave his order to the waitress, with Gigi settling on just a glass of sauvignon blanc. When the waitress turned away, they were left staring at each other.

“Well,” Mertz said.

Gigi’s nerves had ratcheted up like a tightened piano wire. She knew what she had to say, but she was loathe to say it. The silence lengthened until it became as uncomfortable as the chafing of a scratchy garment.

“I found a prescription bottle in Derek’s room,” Gigi blurted out to break the awkward pause.

Mertz closed his eyes briefly, and Gigi saw his hands clench on the table. “A prescription bottle?”

Gigi kneaded the napkin in her lap as if it were bread dough. “Yes. For tranquilizers—probably the same ones that were found in Felicity Davenport’s system.”

Mertz steepled his fingers on top of the table. “And how do you know about that?” There was the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Gigi looked down, trying to avoid his piercing blue eyes. “The maid, Anja, heard you talking to Mr. Winchel, and she told me about it.”

Mertz shook his head back and forth slowly. “And you . . . swallowed . . . this information?”

Gigi jerked upright. Was Mertz making fun of her? He didn’t believe she’d uncovered anything useful. She felt her Irish rising to epic proportions. “The prescription happened to be for Felicity, not Derek. And the bottle was empty.”

So there
, Gigi thought. Let him chew on that one for his meal.

Mertz sat up straighter in his seat if that was even possible. “Did you touch it?”

Gigi felt her telltale blush flood her face with color. “Yes,” she admitted.

Mertz groaned as if he had been shot. “Figures.”

“What do you mean by
that
!”

But before he could answer, his phone buzzed. He smiled apologetically and pulled it from his pocket.

Gigi fiddled with her fork, turning it over and over and over again.

Mertz spoke quietly for a few moments and then ended the call. He tossed his napkin on the table and got up.

“I’m sorry. Something critical has come up at the station, and I need to get back. Tell the owner”—he jerked his head in the direction of the bar where Declan was pulling beer—“to send the bill to me at the station.” He gave Gigi a crooked smile. “Let’s try this again sometime, okay?”

Before Gigi could say another word, he was gone.

She wondered if it was too late to cancel their order and leave, but before she could summon the waitress, Declan slid into the seat vacated by Mertz. He jerked a shoulder toward the door.

“What happened? You guys have a fight?” His deep blue eyes were concerned.

She shook her head. “He had an emergency.”

“Mind if I join you, then? I haven’t eaten yet.”

Gigi groaned inwardly. The last thing she wanted to do was to become any more ensnared by the charm of Declan McQuaid. He’d made it obvious that he was after a good time. With Gigi’s biological clock ticking so loudly, she couldn’t afford that sort of relationship. She wanted to enjoy her glass of wine in peace and then go home to her sweet, little cottage.

But instead she said, “Sure.”

The waitress put a glass of white wine in front of Gigi and slid a plate in front of Declan. Gigi glanced at Declan’s dish. A huge T-bone steak covered half of it, and the other half was hidden beneath a pile of thin, crispy fries.

Declan turned out to be a very amusing companion, and more than once, Gigi found herself laughing out loud. They talked about everything from their Irish ancestors to his youth in England and hers in Massachusetts. Gigi was surprisingly disappointed when Declan finished his last bite of steak and it was obviously time to go.

She glanced at her watch. She was glad she’d dropped Reg at home earlier in the day and had arranged for the young girl down the street to give him a walk and feed him his dinner. He expected to be fed promptly at six
P.M
., and Gigi swore he could tell time better than most humans. He did not brook any tardiness in having his bowl filled.

Gigi said good night to Declan—an awkward moment where she wondered if she ought to stick out her hand to be shaken. She almost fainted when Declan pulled her close and gave her a kiss, European style, on both cheeks. Gigi knew those cheeks were burning red as she backed awkwardly out the front door.

She got into her MINI and slammed the door shut. Would she never learn to play it cool and sophisticated? She was pulling out of the driveway when her cell phone rang. She eased over to a vacant spot at the curb and pulled the phone from her handbag.

It was Mertz.

“I want to apologize about dinner.”

There was a long pause, and for a moment, Gigi thought they had been cut off, but then she heard Mertz clear his throat several times.

“I hope we can do it again sometime. When I’m not on duty, and we won’t be interrupted.”

Gigi gulped. Was Mertz . . . asking her out?

She mumbled something incomprehensible and ended the call, pulling away from the curb with the car jerking as if she were driving a manual shift and not an automatic.

How had she gone from zero men interested in her to two in less than half a day?

• • •

Gigi’s sleep was disjointed and fitful to the point where Reg jumped off the bed and made himself comfortable in his dog bed, sighing loudly. The faces of Declan and Mertz rotated through Gigi’s mind and dreams until she pulled the pillow over her head and groaned loudly. Men were such a distraction! Did she really need that in her life?

She finally rolled out of bed and convinced a sleepy and reluctant Reg to go for a walk. Her cottage was within walking distance of Woodstone’s main street, and they headed in that direction. The sidewalks and street were deserted except for a delivery truck pulled up in front of the newsstand opposite Abigail’s. A man in a cap was wheeling a hand truck loaded with a stack of the day’s newspapers toward the store.

Wisps of early morning fog hovered slightly above the ground and clung to the branches of the trees. Gigi pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and stuck her hands in her pockets. Reg sniffed every parking meter, planter and garbage can he could find while Gigi enjoyed looking in the windows. A beautiful silver cuff bracelet in the window of the Silver Lining caught her eye as well as an exquisite fawn leather jacket displayed on a mannequin in Abigail’s.

Someday, she thought to herself. Someday, she’d be able to afford things like that.

By the time she and Reg got back to the cottage they were both starved. Once again, Gigi created a breakfast that both she and Madeline would be able to enjoy—poached eggs—she did them in a mold in the microwave—on an English muffin with a slice of low-fat sharp cheddar cheese. A small fruit salad rounded out the meal. She packed Madeline’s portion in one of her signature Gourmet De-Lite containers and went to take a shower.

The phone was ringing as Gigi wrapped her wet hair in a towel. She hurried down the hall and grabbed it on the fifth ring. She listened intently, made a few comments and hung up. The call sent her scurrying to her desk where she turned on her computer. While it was booting up, she poured a cup of Sumatran brew from her automatic coffeepot that she filled and set every night.

Finally, her computer sprang to life, and she perched on the edge of her desk chair and clicked open her spreadsheet of expenses and deposits. She stared at the number on the screen. According to her accounting, she ought to have plenty of cash left in her account. But according to the bank manager with whom Gigi had cultivated a relationship since she borrowed a small sum to start her business, she was woefully overdrawn. Something was wrong.

Fortunately Deborah had agreed to meet her in her office in an hour. Gigi delivered Madeline’s breakfast and drove the rest of the way down High Street toward the bank. She couldn’t imagine what had happened to her account. She was very careful about entering everything into her checkbook, balancing it promptly and checking her balance daily before going shopping. There must have been some glitch in the system.

The parking lot was almost empty save for a few cars in the employee slots. Gigi hurried inside, relieved to see that Deborah was alone in her office.

She looked up and smiled when she saw Gigi. She was wearing the requisite dark suit but with a sapphire blue blouse that set off her carefully coiffed blond hair and her blue eyes. She rose and extended her hand as Gigi walked into the room.

“So good to see you again.” She gestured toward the armless chair in front of her desk. “Please have a seat.”

“Thanks.” Gigi was nervous. What if she’d made some sort of hideous mistake on her account? Since the day years ago when she transferred her savings from a piggy bank to a real bank, she’d never overdrawn even once.

“Let me bring up your account.” Deborah reached for the glasses that dangled from a gold chain around her neck.

Gigi kneaded her hands in her lap as she waited.

“I see what the problem is.” Deborah whisked off her glasses and let them drop against her chest. She turned the computer screen so that Gigi could see, too.

“Right here.” Deborah tapped the screen with a long, red fingernail. “One of the checks you deposited bounced. That’s what’s caused all the trouble.”

Gigi squinted at the screen and could just make out the letters.

Deborah tapped the screen again. “The check from the Woodstone Group. That’s your culprit right there.”

Gigi had to think for a minute. “The Woodstone Group?”

Deborah nodded her head.

“Oh,” Gigi said as realization dawned. That was the check Jack Winchel had given her for catering Felicity’s funeral luncheon and for all the other work she’d done.

“It bounced?” she said in disbelief.

Deborah shook her head. “There’s been some scuttlebutt in the papers lately about the Woodstone Group. Seems they’re skating on thin ice.”

How could that be?
Gigi thought. There was that big house, the fancy cars . . . maybe Felicity was the one paying for all that?

“I’m sure if you’ll explain to them what’s happened, they’ll make good on the check.” Deborah smiled sympathetically across the width of the desk. “Meanwhile, I can set you up with some overdraft protection that should cover the shortfall for the near term.”

Gigi nodded dully. She really had to get this deal with Branston Foods. She hated living so hand to mouth. It made her nervous. Fortunately, she had five new clients starting her regimen next week. That would certainly help.

“I guess that’s what I’ll do,” she said as she rose from the chair.

Deborah held out her hand, and Gigi shook it.

She was halfway through the revolving door when the implications of what she’d learned struck her. If Winchel’s company was skating on thin ice, to use Deborah’s term, didn’t that give him a darn good reason for murdering Felicity? A good portion of her estate was going to Derek, but Winchel was still in for a substantial sum of money.

Chapter 11

Gigi’s head swirled as she pulled out of the bank parking lot onto High Street. Traffic had picked up, and several people were already out and about poking into the shops.

She had to find a way to eliminate some of the suspects. There were entirely too many! First Don Bartholomew, then Derek, and now Winchel.