“It all comes back to the timing,” I said. “Every time I think I have it figured out, the sequence of events doesn’t work. Or I get the timing to make sense, but my suspect has no reason to kill Pam.”
“Murderers lie, as well, which doesn’t help.”
He was right about that, of course. “Let’s get the vampire knitting club together tonight. I want to pull every single piece of evidence we have, every story we’ve heard, everything we can think of. Let’s put it in one place and see if we can get a picture to emerge.”
“That’s an excellent idea. Do you mind if I bring Lochlan?”
“Isn’t he a suspect?”
“He had no reason at all to kill that woman. What he does have is a fresh perspective.”
I supposed having one more gorgeous vampire wasn’t too much of a hardship, so I agreed Rafe’s houseguest could join the knitting club this evening.
“I’ve been thinking about Pamela’s ex-husband.”
“What about him?”
“He’s a well-known property developer in Boston. Very rich and connected.”
“And?”
“I think I’m going to give him a call.”
“Do you think he’ll speak to you?”
“No idea, but maybe he has some ideas on why she was killed.”
Rafe offered to take me for lunch, but I told him I needed to get back to the shop. It was true, but I also wanted to do some thinking and make that call. As he was dropping me off, he turned to me. “I’d rather know you’re on the phone to someone who’s miles away than consorting with possible killers.”
Frankly, I felt the same way.
I found William in the shop talking to Violet. I said hello and wondered if he had another catering gig he wanted us to help him with, but he seemed at a loss for a reason to be in Cardinal Woolsey’s. He stammered that he’d been passing by and wanted to make sure Vi was okay after the shock of the other night.
I glanced from one to the other and thought they both looked like they were up to something. I was so busy thinking murder and motives that it took me a few seconds before I smelled romance in the air, which had so much sweeter a scent than death and murder. But wait, I smelled something else as well, when William reached into a bag at his feet and brought out a wrapped baguette. “Vi and I had ours, but I brought you some lunch.”
“Definitely the way to my heart,” I joked, taking the wrapped sandwich. Though I wondered if it was Violet’s heart he was interested in.
“Don’t rush off,” I said. “I’ve got some work to do upstairs.”
And I left them to it. Nyx followed me up to my flat. Maybe the flirting was getting on her nerves. I wasn’t certain how I felt about this possible pairing. Would those two be good for each other? On the positive side, William knew all about Violet being a witch, and she knew all about Rafe. On the negative, I wasn’t certain they fit together. But maybe that was natural fear on my part because I liked them both so much and didn’t want to suffer the consequences if the relationship didn’t work out.
I wondered if Rafe knew and what he thought.
Once we were in my flat above the shop, I made us both lunch. A can of high-end tuna for my fussy familiar, and I got out a plate and unwrapped the baguette William had given me. I immediately checked out the contents. Oh, yum. Brie, with thin slices of apple. I munched my way through while I thought about Pamela, the wine cellar and how that shifted things.
When I was done, I placed another call to Sarah in Boston, the one who had known Pamela. And from her I got the name and contact information for Pamela’s ex-husband.
I didn’t relish calling a man who was divorced from Pamela. If I was bitter, I couldn’t imagine how he felt about her, but I had an idea. I had no idea if it made any sense, but like Ian had said, my hunches were pretty good.
Pamela’s ex-husband wasn’t the kind of man who answered his own phone. I reached an assistant and then managed to get through to his personal assistant, and when I gave my name, she insisted on knowing what it was about. If I wanted to talk to the husband, I was going to have to be honest. “It’s about his ex-wife’s death.”
“Mr. Forbes has already spoken with the Oxford police,” she informed me coolly.
“I know.” I didn’t, but it made sense that they’d called him. I wondered if I could have saved myself this call. But I could talk to him in a way that the police couldn’t. I didn’t want to pull the “I was a friend of his ex-wife” card because I hadn’t been Pamela’s friend and I didn’t want to lie. “Please. It’s important.”
“I’ll see if he’s available,” she said in a tone that suggested hell would be frozen over long before I’d be talking to Pamela’s ex. But to my surprise and no doubt to hers, in a very short period of time a man said, “This is Conrad Forbes. How can I help you?”
He had a no-nonsense voice and, I suspected, very little time to waste on me. I had to plead my case and do it quickly. Which, of course, made me completely blithery and tongue-tied. “Hello. I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Lucy Swift. I knew Pamela in Oxford.”
“Yes. And how can I help you?” No warmth. If anything, he sounded colder than his personal assistant had. No doubt his time was worth about a billion dollars an hour, so every second was valuable. I cut straight to the chase. “I need to ask you why your marriage broke up.”
“And why
