To Brie or Not to Brie (36 page)

“You’re asking because Hugo wears one.”

“He does?” I said, the model of innocence.

“You know he does. You think you are so slick.” Urso snorted. “The hairs we found
were longer, not toupee
length. Now, that’s all the information I’m giving you. Go back to your party. Relax.
I’ve got this covered. I promise. I haven’t ended my investigation.”

An hour later, after the party disbanded and Matthew, Meredith, and the twins said
good night to the last guest, I leashed Rocket and Rags and closed up the shop. While
turning the key in the lock, a question popped into my head—one that I had thought
of earlier but had downplayed. How had the killer entered the Igloo at night without
a key and without breaking down the door?

Hoping that if I viewed the front of the ice cream parlor the answer might come to
me, I steered the dog and cat in that direction. As we strolled along the sidewalk,
I ran through possible scenarios.

One: Iris was worried about Urso suspecting her daughter. The girl was too young to
have considered a quickie with the rakish Giacomo Capriotti in the freezer. Had someone
paid her to leave the door open on purpose?

Two: Giacomo, who had a history of violence against women, muscled his way into the
Igloo to accost whoever was closing the store. Again, I thought of Iris’s daughter.
He forced her at gunpoint into the freezer. She struggled. The gun fired. Iris’s daughter
got scared and lashed out with a five-gallon container of ice cream, but if that were
the case, why hadn’t she come forward and explained? Because the incident didn’t end
in rape or a beating, it ended in murder, and she was scared spitless.

Three: One of the Scoops lent her key to someone. I stayed with Iris’s daughter as
the perpetrator. Either she lent it to a boyfriend or she lent it to Iris. Since Iris
knew about the problem, I considered Iris. She had no reason to have killed Giacomo
Capriotti unless she held a grudge against Hugo—which she had intimated days ago—and
meant to frame him. Or perhaps Stratton had taken the key from Iris’s purse. He was
bald. A wig would have disguised
him. He had access to wigs. But what would have been his motive to kill the man? Had
he taken up the gauntlet to protect Iris’s daughter’s virtue?

You’re reaching, Charlotte. Keep it simple.

As Rocket, Rags, and I neared the Igloo, I peeked inside. Hugo stood at the counter
happily serving ice cream. The Scoops were there, too, and neither appeared worried
about being arrested.

And then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I whipped my head around and caught Anabelle leering at me. Her right hand was jammed
into the pocket of her overcoat. My pulse skyrocketed. Did she have a gun? Would she
shoot me right in front of the store? Why hadn’t Rocket barked at her? Why hadn’t
Rags yowled? Weren’t they as scared as I was? I scanned the rest of the street. No
one was near. The patrons inside the ice cream parlor seemed oblivious to my dilemma.

Working hard to keep my voice steady, I said, “Hi, Anabelle. What a surprise.” Was
she crazy? Had she made a voodoo doll in my image? Had she killed that science teacher
back in Abilene? Had she killed Giacomo Capriotti?

“I’ve got…” She struggled to pull something from her pocket.

I flinched. I had nothing. No shield. No Harry Potter invisible cloak. I was toast
unless I could get her to be reasonable. “Look, Anabelle, I know the stress you’re
under
with your dad sick and moving and…” I licked my lower lip. “I’m sure I can talk to
Urso.”

“Aha, got it.” She removed her hand from her pocket.

Being a bigger chicken than I realized I was, I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Charlotte, what are you doing? Why are your eyes closed? Did you get something in
one? Can I help?”

Help
? Oh, for heaven’s sake, had I overreacted? One at a time, I opened my eyes. Anabelle
was holding a book tied with ribbon. My gaze went from the book to her face. She wasn’t
leering; she was grinning.

“I know I wasn’t invited to the wedding,” she said, “but I wanted to give this to
Meredith.”

My gaze was drawn back to the gift.
The Prophet
, by Kahlil Gibran.

“Whenever Meredith came into the shop, she browsed through it,” Anabelle went on.
“It must have special meaning to her.”

In high school, Meredith and I had spent hours in the library devouring Gibran’s book
and dreaming of the kinds of relationships he described. A passage from the poem about
marriage and how the married couple should let the winds of the heavens dance between
them stuck in my head.

“Would you mind giving it to her tomorrow? I’m”—tears filled Anabelle’s eyes—“leaving
first thing in the morning. I’m packed and ready to go. I said good-bye to Octavia.
This was the last thing I needed to do.” She thrust the book at me.

“I’d be glad to,” I said. “You’ll be missed in Providence.”

She threw herself at me and hugged me like I was her long-lost sister. How could I
have ever thought she was a killer?

* * *

By dawn Sunday morning, I was already moving in high gear. I fixed breakfast for the
kids and pets, opened the
store, baked a number of three-onion-and-potato quiches for the Sunday brunch set,
and last but not least, made sure that Bozz, my teenage Internet guru who was attending
the local college and had only put in minimum time at the store of late, felt comfortable
running The Cheese Shop on his own. Everyone else who worked at the store was attending
the wedding.

Around eleven, Rebecca and I headed to Harvest Moon Ranch. Meredith, her mother, and
the twins were already there. Lizzie was fixing their hair in the bridal suite. Rebecca
and I planned to review the menu with the caterer and then change our clothes in the
guest suite. Matthew would arrive with his parents, Grandmère, and Pépère at noon.

“Isn’t the weather glorious?” Rebecca waltzed from one counter to the next, inspecting
platter after platter of foods that were being brought to room temperature. “I’m so
excited.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell.”

She grinned. “Okay, confession. I’m imagining my own wedding, aren’t you? I think
we’ll get married wearing beekeeper outfits. They have veils. And we’ll play “Flight
of the Bumblebee” and serve honey cake.” She giggled. “What will yours be like?”

“I want it to be dreamy with butterflies and all of you wearing shimmering gold. I
want an Irish prayer to honor my mother, and maybe a French horn will play the wedding
march to honor my dad. I’ve even thought that I should have Jordan come to my grandparents’
house and pick me up. That’s an old French tradition.” Worried that any more talk
of my wedding would make my misty eyes turn into waterworks, I said, “Enough about
me. Let’s focus on one wedding at a time, okay? There’s more food in the walk-in.
I want to take a look.”

“Won’t the caterer be upset that we’re double-checking everything?”

“She’d better not,” I said with a laugh. “I warned her that I was a hands-on person.”

Through the kitchen window, I saw Tyanne giving instructions to the caterer, a pleasingly
plump woman who reminded me of the popular chef Paula Deen. She had a winning smile,
silver hair, and a cheery disposition. Six waiters, each wearing white trousers and
crisp white shirts with blue ties, followed Tyanne and the caterer from the buffet
table to the dining tables, which were draped in white cloths. Each table was adorned
with a floral centerpiece consisting of white and blue flowers. An additional waiter
was setting up the wine bar, which would feature Krupp Brothers’ Black Bart Bride,
a lovely blend of chardonnay and viognier grapes, and the Kali Hart pinot noir that
we had drunk while watching
Hamlet
. A thin young man in a white suit attended to the Indigo Buntings in the white rattan
birdcage. Iris ambled along the white carpet leading to the gazebo, doing last-minute
touches like tightening bows or sprucing up arrays of sprigs of flowers tied to chairs.
Stratton, Iris’s plus-one, sat on a chair in the shade. Already dressed for the wedding,
he looked uncomfortable and restless.

“Let’s have a peek at the desserts.” I entered the refrigerator and eyed the shelves
to the right. The mini-cheesecakes and mascarpone fruit tarts, arranged on trays,
looked exactly as I had designed them. The caterer had made three dozen of each. The
white chocolate candy shells for the Brie blueberry ice cream were stacked. Each would
be set on a white plate lined with a sky blue doily. The ice cream was stowed in a
freezer section at the rear of the walk-in.

“Brrrr.” Rebecca entered and rubbed her bare arms. “Everything looks good to me. Very
organized.”

I opened the freezer door, retrieved a container of the Brie blueberry ice cream,
and bumped the freezer door closed with my hip. “I think I’ll test the texture.”

“The Igloo made it. I’m sure it’s divine.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, fine,” she laughed. “But now you’re pushing the hands-on thing. You’re being
persnickety.”

“Me? Never.” As I moved toward the refrigerator exit, the container slipped. I caught
it between my wrists. The cold scorched my skin. I hefted the container back between
my hands and halted.

“What?” Rebecca said.

“I caught it.”

“Do you want a prize? There’s a lot of blue ribbon around.”

“Don’t you get it? I caught it with my
wrists
,” I said, emphasizing the word. “Remember when we were here last week for the tasting,
and Sylvie asked Iris how her wrists were healing?”

“I didn’t come.”

“That’s right. I forgot. Anyway, we were testing appetizers, and Iris said something
to Sylvie that irritated her.”

“Big surprise.”

“So Sylvie lashed back and asked Iris how the salve she had given her was working
on her wrists. Iris explained that she had forgotten to put on oven mitts and burned
her wrists on the edges of a pot while boiling eggs for her orchids.”

“Ouch.”

“But how could she have done that with the pot’s handles in the way?”

“I’m not following.”

“Pots have at least one handle.” I set the ice cream container on a refrigerator shelf
and mimed lifting a saucepan. “One or both wrists couldn’t have hit the side of the
pot unless she was a contortionist.” I exposed my already red wrists to Rebecca. “What
if she freezer-burned them on a container of Brie blueberry ice cream?”

Rebecca’s mouth dropped open. “Are you suggesting that Iris killed Giacomo Capriotti?”

I peeked out of the refrigerator. Iris was still tweaking her floral décor. Stratton
was nowhere to be seen. I hurried back to Rebecca. “Iris was with Prudence the day
Jacky told me about her husband. I accused Edy of calling him because she overheard
us. She swore that Prudence overheard the conversation, too. Prudence tells Iris everything.
What if Iris was the one who called Jacky’s husband?”

Rebecca opened her hands. “Why would she do that?”

“Her business was suffering. She needed money. She told him that she knew how he could
find Jacky. She would give him information for a price.”

“But she doesn’t need money. She got the wedding gig.”

“After Giacomo was found dead,” I said. “And it’s not enough cash. Her daughter is
planning on college. When I saw Iris at the bank, she was gleeful about making a deposit
from Meredith. I remember her wistfully saying, ‘If wishes were college tuition.’”

Rebecca shook her head. “That’s not enough to convict her.”

“What if the motive we ascribed to Edy holds true for Iris? Giacomo agreed to pay
her, but when they met, he reneged. She got angry and lashed out.”

“Iris has light hair,” Rebecca said. “Urso found dark hair at the crime scene.”

“Iris is dating Stratton. What if she borrowed his wig from
Hamlet
?” I remembered how Rocket had plucked Iris’s tote bag from the office chair and wedged
it beneath his head as a pillow. Was there a wig in that bag? Stratton was a dog groomer.
Did the scent of other dogs linger on the wig?

“How did she get Giacomo to meet her at the Igloo?” Rebecca asked.

“Remember how Iris hinted that she knew something more about Hugo? She said he had
a past. What if they had dated?” The other day, I asked Iris, but she didn’t answer
because Prudence hurried her along. I could have kicked myself for not having asked
Hugo later.

Rebecca bobbed her head. “That makes sense. On one of their dates, they shared a flirtatious
moment in the freezer.”

“What if Iris thought,
Aha, the freezer is the perfect place to meet privately.
She stole her daughter’s key to the Igloo.” I related the scene at the bank when
I spied Iris giving her daughter a key chain. “She had easy access to her daughter’s
keys.”

Rebecca listened, as riveted as a kid hearing a Grimm’s Fairy Tale.

“She asked Giacomo to meet her at the shop after it closed,” I said. “He came alone.
He’d fought with his brother, remember? Giacomo was a ladies’ man. He probably thought
he could get a kiss or two out of the deal. When they met, however, things got ugly
between them. He said he wasn’t dumb. He had figured out Jacky lived in Providence,
so he didn’t need Iris’s help any longer and wouldn’t pay her. Iris protested. She
said she would warn Jacky. That’s when Giacomo pulled out his Beretta. He threatened
to leave her in the freezer if she said a word to anyone. Iris told me last night
that she has a fear of enclosed spaces. What if that’s a recent development?”