Steamed to Death (22 page)

Gigi glanced over the appetizers. She certainly didn’t want to recommend the oysters. She felt her face getting warm at the thought. “How about lobster bisque?”

“Ah. A sort of sequential surf-and-turf dinner. Excellent idea.” Mertz put his menu down again. “What about you? What are you having?”

It was a tough decision. Gigi didn’t dine at places like the Auberge Rouge every day, and she wanted to make the most of the experience. She could have steak anytime, even if it wasn’t dry aged.

“I think I’ll have the duck consommé with the foie gras dumplings. Followed by the duck with lingonberries.

“That sounds like something my grandparents would have made, only they would have shot the duck themselves and picked the berries from their own garden.”

Gigi felt herself relaxing as the conversation ebbed and flowed naturally and seamlessly. By the time the waiter approached with their main course, she realized she was actually enjoying herself. Mertz, too, had let down his guard, although his impeccable posture hadn’t slipped a notch in the process.

“The duck for mademoiselle.” The waiter grabbed the plate from his tray.

Just as he did so, a man at the table in back of Gigi and Mertz jumped to his feet. His elbow jostled the waiter’s arm, and the plate tilted, tilted, tilted until the duck breast Gigi had been so looking forward to slid right off and into her lap.

The waiter turned as white as his shirt.

For a moment Gigi could do nothing but sit and stare at the piece of meat reclining in her lap. The stain from the sauce was spreading in an ever widening circle. All over her brand new dress. Which had cost a fortune she could hardly afford.

Gigi closed her eyes in disbelief. Would the cleaner’s be able to get that mess out? It would probably be best if she went and sponged it with cold water in the interim.

Meanwhile, the waiter had commandeered a whole host of other waiters and busboys, who waved various bits of cloth and bottles of solution at Gigi.

“The dinner is on the house,” Gigi overheard the waiter whisper to Mertz. Mertz looked relatively amused by the entire spectacle.

Finally, Gigi decided she needed to be alone to deal with things, excused herself from the table and bolted for the ladies’ room.

The ladies’ room was enormous, with two dark blue velvet chaises and a crystal chandelier, but Gigi hardly noticed the décor. She looked at her ruined dress in the beveled mirror and felt like crying. The cleaner’s might be able to get the stain out, but there was no guarantee, and she knew from experience that grease was the worst possible offender.

And until now, the evening had been going so well. Gigi thought of her Uncle Frank on her mother’s side. His answer to everything was
What are you going to do?
Always said with a quirk of a smile and a shrug of his massive shoulders. Indeed, Gigi said to herself,
What are you going to do? Let a simple accident ruin your evening?

Gigi squared her own shoulders, took out her compact and powdered her nose. She was about to push open the swinging door when she felt her phone vibrate from the depths of her clutch. She glanced at the number and saw that it was Sienna’s.

“Hello?”

“Gigi?” Gigi was startled to hear Oliver’s voice, not Sienna’s.

“Oliver?”

“I’m using Sienna’s cell. I knew your number would be programmed in.”

His voice sounded strange—very strained and almost panicky. Gigi felt panic rise in her own throat. “What is it?”
Oh please don’t let something be wrong with the baby
,
she prayed fervently.

“It’s Sienna.” Oliver swallowed a sob.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“The police.” Oliver stopped and took a deep breath. When he went on, his voice was stronger and more assured. “The police have taken her in for questioning.”

Chapter 20

“What’s wrong?” Mertz jumped up as Gigi approached the table. He glanced at Gigi’s dress. “I’m sure the restaurant will make good for the—”

“It’s not that!” Gigi was so mad she felt like upending the whole table full of food all over him.

Mertz slid back into his seat but without taking his eyes off Gigi. “Do you want to tell me what it is, then?”

That only made Gigi madder. He knew perfectly well that the police were picking up Sienna tonight and taking her to the station. He probably planned to head there right after their dinner. And yet he calmly sat there, made small talk and ate and drank with Sienna’s best friend. The nerve!

A knowing look came over Mertz’s face. “Oh,” was all he said.

Oh, indeed
, Gigi thought. She sat opposite him, her arms crossed over her chest, food forgotten.

“It’s that friend of yours, right?” Mertz pushed his steak aside.

Gigi nodded.

Mertz rubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sorry. I really am. We had no choice. The mayor is breathing down our necks. When the chief heard about the latest development, he insisted we bring her in for questioning. I asked him if we couldn’t possibly avoid it, but he was insistent. One murder in Woodstone was bad enough, but now with two . . . he’s playing it strictly by the book.”

Gigi still hadn’t touched the fresh plate of food the waiter had brought. She thought she would choke if she tried to eat anything.

“But why Sienna? There are plenty of other suspects.”

“The chief insisted.” Mertz rubbed his face again. “Listen, if you really want to help your friend, then get her to tell us where she was the afternoon Felicity was killed. She claims to have an alibi but refuses to divulge what it is.”

• • •

Gigi barely slept a wink, worried about Sienna and imagining her giving birth behind bars. She stared at the window waiting for the barest hint of dawn, for once taking scarce comfort in the delightful warmth and comfort of her cozy bed. At the first glimpse of light, she slipped her feet over the side and felt around for her slippers.

Reg opened one eye and stared at her, confused.

“It’s early. Go back to sleep.”

But he got up anyway and followed her out to the kitchen.

Gigi brewed a cup of coffee and poured it into her lucky mug—the one with the picture of President Kennedy on it. Her parents had purchased it during his campaign, and, although plenty of other bits of crockery had been broken or lost, it had remained. She reached into the refrigerator for the carton of milk and noticed the foam container with last night’s dinner. The waiter had insisted on packaging it up for her along with a large slice of chocolate amaretto pie, on the house. Frankly, Gigi would be more than happy if she never heard of the Auberge Rouge again.

She finished her coffee and checked the clock. It was still only six
A.M
. Definitely too early to call Oliver and find out about Sienna. Instead, she grabbed a frying pan from the overhead pot rack and plunked it down on the stove. She was making Madeline a breakfast of whole wheat blueberry pancakes and turkey sausage. It wasn’t the lowest-calorie breakfast imaginable, but if one practiced portion control, it was still something a dieter could enjoy. And Gigi was providing the portion control. Madeline couldn’t eat what she didn’t have.

Once the pancakes were done, Gigi took a quick shower and pulled on her favorite jeans and the sweater that had started life as waist length but over time had stretched to tunic length. It was her “blankie” for when times were really bad. She’d worn it relentlessly after her breakup with Ted, but it hadn’t been out of the closet in months.

She grabbed the containers with Madeline’s breakfast and jumped into the MINI.

The streetlamps were still on in downtown Woodstone when Gigi got there, and the shops were closed with their windows shuttered, but a steady stream of men and women carrying briefcases was already hurrying silently toward the Woodstone train station.

Gigi stopped quickly in front of Simpson and West to deliver Madeline’s meal, then continued on toward Sienna’s house. As she pulled into the long driveway, she realized she was clenching both her teeth and her hands on the steering wheel. She pulled up to the front door and sat for a moment, wiggling her fingers and her jaw, trying against the odds to relax.

A light was burning toward the back of the house. Gigi picked her way through the brittle red leaves that littered the path leading to the kitchen door. She peered through the window. Sienna was seated at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. Gigi tapped lightly on the door.

“Gigi!” Sienna jumped up and rushed to pull the door open. “I am so glad to see you. It’s been horrible.” She buried her face in her hands.

Gigi threw her arms around Sienna and gave her a fierce hug. “Thank goodness, the police let you go.”

Sienna nodded. “They just took me in for questioning. That was bad enough. I think they were trying to . . . scare me.”

“It’s going to be okay. Why don’t you sit down while I make you a cup of tea?”

Sienna allowed Gigi to lead her toward a kitchen chair. “I don’t know what to do.” She looked up at Gigi with tears in her eyes.

“For starters, you can tell the police where you were the afternoon Felicity was killed. Right now they seem to think you snuck into the house using your key, crept up the back stairs and doctored her glass of water with a handful of tranquilizers.”

Sienna shook her head so fiercely that her hair whipped back and forth across her face. “But I didn’t!”

Gigi pressed on. “And then you waited until she was in the sauna, and you blocked the door knowing that she would be too woozy to get herself out.” She gulped. “And you raised the heat as high as it would go.”

Gigi glanced at Sienna. She sat with one hand on her belly, which protruded through the opening in her robe. Gigi felt terrible. She didn’t want to upset Sienna, but she could see no other way. Sienna
had
to tell the police where she was that afternoon!

Gigi knelt by Sienna’s chair and took Sienna’s hands in her own. They were frigid. She rubbed them gently. “The only way out is to tell the police the truth, don’t you see?”

Sienna turned her head away. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Gigi gave her hands an encouraging squeeze. “You can tell me if you like, and I’ll give the information to Mertz. You won’t even have to talk to him.”

“I can’t.” Sienna gave a loud sniff.

“Why not?” Gigi asked again, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She couldn’t begin to imagine what could be so bad that Sienna didn’t want to reveal it.

“It was horrible.” Sienna sniffed again and swiped a sleeve across her nose. “They made me sit in this stuffy little room without even a glass of water, until your horrible Detective Mertz got there.”

“He’s not
my
Detective Mertz,” Gigi said, thinking of the previous evening. So Mertz had gone straight from dropping Gigi off to the station to question Sienna. “It will only get worse if you don’t tell them what they want to know.”

“It’s so embarrassing.” Sienna turned to look at Gigi.

“Embarrassing?” Gigi squeaked. “Embarrassing is when you leave the restroom and don’t realize you have toilet paper stuck to your shoe. Embarrassing is when you call someone by the wrong name. Embarrassing is not knowing you have spinach caught between your teeth.”

Sienna’s expression turned sheepish. She twiddled with the ends of her bathrobe tie, rubbing them between her fingers and turning them this way and that.

Gigi grabbed Sienna’s hands and forced Sienna to look her in the face. “What could be worse,” she said slowly and carefully, “than going to jail for a crime you didn’t commit.”

“You’re right.” Sienna bit her lip and looked away for a moment. “Besides, Mertz knows I’m taking insulin.”

Gigi sat up straighter. “He does?”

Sienna bowed her head, and her hair formed a curtain across her face. Gigi couldn’t see her expression. “He asked me whether Oliver or I had access to insulin. I couldn’t lie.” She looked up. “He only had to ask my doctor to find out.”

“Then all the more reason to tell them what you know.”

“It’s about Oliver,” she said so softly that Gigi could barely hear her.

For a moment Gigi wondered if Oliver was having an affair. Perhaps he really
had
been seeing Felicity, and the story wasn’t made up? Somehow she couldn’t believe it. Oliver was devoted to Sienna, especially now with the baby coming. It had to be something else.

“Tell me what it is. Just dump it all out. Remember what you said about how it hurts less if you pull the bandage off quickly?”

Sienna nodded. She put her hand over her mouth and mumbled something.

“What?”

“I followed him.”

“Oliver?”

Sienna nodded. “I had to see where he was going.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s been going . . . somewhere . . . lately.” Sienna clenched her eyes shut tightly. “And money’s been missing from our joint account.” She grabbed a napkin off the table and began twisting it between her fingers. “I thought . . . maybe . . . the two were related. So I followed him.”

“And?”

“It was the afternoon of Felicity’s murder.” Sienna gave an exaggerated shiver. “The wind was biting, and a light rain had started. He . . . Oliver . . . was driving toward New Haven, and I followed. About ten miles from the city, the rain really picked up, and it was hard to see. But I managed to keep him in sight.” She looked at Gigi. “I couldn’t imagine where on earth he was going.”

Gigi was quiet and let Sienna talk.

“He was heading for some place I’d never been before. I didn’t know what to expect. He pulled into this parking lot. There was a sign at the entrance, but I was so busy keeping my eye on Oliver’s car that I missed it. He got out and so did I.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “It was pouring, and I got soaked. I remember thinking that all this had better lead to something.”

“Did it?”

Sienna nodded. “I followed him, discreetly of course, to the door of this rather elaborate building. Finally I was able to read the sign.”

“What was it?” Gigi realized she was holding her breath.

“A casino,” Sienna responded, her laugh catching in her throat. “The Riverwoods Casino. He’s been gambling,” she said flatly.