She glanced up at DI Chisholm, who had arrived and was sitting in the corner, quietly watching. He nodded.
“Very well,” she said crisply. The words bounced like hail. She didn’t pull up a seat at the table, however. She chose to sit outside the dining circle, in a wingback chair beside the buffet.
William Thresher stood just inside the door, with Violet beside him. And I positioned myself on the other side of the doorway.
Rafe stood. He had a commanding presence anyway and completely took control of the room. “Thank you very much to everyone for coming. Especially to Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm, who is here not in an official capacity but because I have asked him to come.”
That wasn’t true, I had asked Ian to come, but Ian didn’t correct Rafe, merely nodded. He might be here in an unofficial capacity, but I knew there were officers ready to close in in a minute if we got lucky tonight. Honestly, I was so nervous I could barely breathe.
I realized now that it wasn’t me who’d look completely stupid if this whole thing turned out wrong. It was Rafe who had accepted the responsibility. He glanced over at me in that moment as though he knew I was thinking about him and gave just a slight smile. It was a ghost of the smile he kept just for me. And I suddenly felt so much better. Maybe this wouldn’t work, but maybe it would. At the very least, we were trying to find justice. I touched Pamela’s scarf. That had to count for something.
Rafe said, “I feel responsible in some way for the young woman’s death the other night. It was I who suggested William Thresher as a caterer. And through him, Pamela was hired as a waitress. Therefore, since I feel some personal responsibility for that young woman’s welfare, I wanted to bring everyone together one more time and see if we could begin to understand what happened.”
“She was killed. That’s evident to all of us,” Hugo said in some irritation. “The police have interviewed all of us, ad nauseam, and I’ve had to take valuable time away from my business. So unless you’ve got something new to bring to the table,” and here he spread his open hand over the gleaming mahogany dining table, “then I suggest you are wasting everyone’s time.”
Wow. It wasn’t often anyone ever spoke to Rafe that way. In fact, I couldn’t think of a single time I’d seen it happen. Hugo didn’t know, as I did, what Rafe was capable of. For just a second, I saw his face darken and felt danger, and then he clamped down on the hidden part of his nature and urbanity returned.
“But thank you anyway for indulging us. Let’s begin right away and then we can all waste as little time as necessary.”
Just the fact that Hugo Percival Brown thought time taken from his business because of a murder that had occurred in his own house was wasted made me like him even less. Not that I was a big fan of his to begin with. Or his entitled son, who sat at the other end of the table, his gaze on a portrait of his mother that hung on the dining room wall as though he’d never seen it before.
“The police have established the time of death as being between ten p.m. and ten forty-five. Correct, DI Chisholm?”
“Correct.”
Mrs. Percival Brown now stood up. “For goodness’ sake, Rafe. We all know that. If I’m to sit through the tedious recital of a dinner party I didn’t attend, I’m going to need a drink.”
No one said a word. She glanced at her husband as though he might oblige, but he didn’t even look up. Finally, with a muttered exclamation, she clipped her way over on her high heels to a beautiful cabinet at the far end of the room. She took a crystal tumbler and filled it with amber liquid. Whiskey, I imagined.
She was like a one-woman play. She didn’t offer anyone else a drink, and as she poured her own, there was complete silence. Even from where I was sitting on the other side of the room, I could hear liquid pour into the glass. That’s how silent it was. And she clipped her way back and sat down.
Rafe continued, “It’s not the timing that’s so confusing. It’s the motive. Why would someone in this house want to kill Pamela Forbes? A waitress hired for the evening?”
Hugo spoke up again. “We don’t know that she was killed by someone who was here that night. There’s always the possibility it was an outsider. The doors weren’t secured; our staff had the night off. I have made that clear to the police.”
“Indulge me.”
It was clear that Hugo Percival Brown was accustomed to being the dominant force in the room. Rafe had taken the spotlight off him and in his own dining room, and he didn’t like it. However, he must have realized we were all here now and it would be simpler for him just to let Rafe continue than to keep interrupting him. He said nothing, and after a moment, Rafe continued.
“William Thresher is an excellent caterer.”
What? He was totally going off script here, and while William looked startled, he also looked gratified at the praise. “He also times things to precision. William? Can you go through the schedule of when your various dishes were served?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Genevieve muttered. “Will we be given the recipes too?”
William did as he was asked and walked us through every course, from the appetizers that went on the table at seven-thirty through the dessert. While it was kind of boring, what happened was that everyone in the room who’d been probably rigid with nerves began to relax.
“All right,” Rafe said. “Thank you, William. Now let’s go over the critical time. Alex, you
