I needed to think some more. First I checked for my keys. Thank God for Julian, who had returned my van during the night, and taken back his Rover.
Then I quick-stepped into the kitchen and made a graham cracker crust. Then I spooned the luscious filling into the crust, scattered blueberries on top, and melted some apricot preserves on top of the stove. Once I’d strained the liquid from the preserves onto the pie, I carefully placed the pie in the bottom of a cardboard box, stabilized my offering with crumpled newspapers, and placed the box in my van.
Then I took off for the Attenborough haunt in Flicker Ridge.
CHARLOTTE ANSWERED THE door. I’d called on the way over, saying we’d never finished our business the previous evening. Charlotte, confused, had said she didn’t know what I was talking about. As delicately as possible, I had reminded her that I had not received the last payment for the wedding reception.
“Oh yes, yes, of course,” Charlotte had replied. “I thought you meant, that is, I thought you were talking about Jack.”
“Yes, it’s very sad. I can’t stand to stay in my house. Is this, is it a bad time?”
Her breath caught when she sighed. “No. Come on over, you might as well. I’m just getting packed to go to the spa. I…have to get away. I guess I can’t stand to stay in my house either.”
“I’m bringing you something,” I said, which sounded lame, even to me.
“I hope it’s not flowers.” She exhaled so forcefully, I didn’t have the heart to ask her to explain herself.
When Charlotte ushered me into her living room, I knew immediately what the flower comment meant: at least twenty bouquets from the banquet tables were ranged around the immense living space. The place looked like a funeral parlor and smelled like a perfume factory.
“Well,” I said, unsure of what words to use.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” asked Charlotte, as she swept an arm to indicate the room. She wore a bright pink pleated blouse and designer jeans. But her face was a wreck: deep, dark bags creased the area under her eyes, her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was mottled.
I handed her the wrapped blueberry-cream pie. “Don’t know how long you’re going to be at the spa, but this should keep a few days in the refrigerator.”
“I don’t know how long I’m going to be there either. Until I feel better, I suppose. Victor’s been trying to convince me to invest in the place. I told him before I did that, he’d have to improve the food. He said I had no idea how much it cost to provide lovely meals to the clients. But he’d let me stay for as many days as I wanted until he closed in October—” She stopped suddenly and regarded me. “Sorry, I’m running on at the mouth, which is what I do when I’m upset.” She pressed her hands into her closed eyes.
Charlotte most definitely was not someone you hugged, even in church, even if she was crying.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice low. “It’s just terribly sad. We all…we all loved him.”
“I’m not being very polite,” Charlotte said as she walked quickly into the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”
I thought of all the caffeine I’d already had that day, and asked if she had decaf. She said she did. Once she’d put the pie in the refrigerator, set the coffee to brew, and placed cups, saucers, spoons, cream, sugar, and an insulated carafe on her breakfast bar, she seemed to have recovered somewhat. As she poured the decaf into the carafe, she even smiled at me.
“It’s good to have company. Oops, I forgot your check.” She reached into her purse, pulled out an envelope with my name on it, and handed it to me. “With all the chaos last night, I just…”
“Don’t worry about it. Thank you.”
She took a tentative sip of her coffee and asked, “Do the police have any idea what happened to Jack when he went outside?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. Didn’t someone from the sheriff’s department come talk to you?”
She snorted. “A young fellow asked me questions very early this morning. Did I see anyone leave the dining room with Jack? No. Did I see anyone leave the dining room right after Jack left? No. So why did Jack leave the dining room? To have a cigarette, I told this young fellow, didn’t you find a butt outside? And he said they found marijuana outside. He thought I was trying to make a joke, which of course I never would.”
“Huh,” I said noncommittally.
“Before Jack was attacked, there just seemed to be a lot of organized chaos,” Charlotte went on bitterly. “Afterward, there was just chaos, period.”
“Chaos,” I agreed.
“Oh, God, I do wish I’d paid attention, but I’m afraid I was more focused on the music getting going, the tables, I don’t know, it all seems like such trivia now. So…have they figured anything out?”
“Nobody’s told me anything.”
“It was probably one of the landscapers, staying to see if he could mug a wealthy guest.”
Inwardly, I bristled, since whenever there’s a theft or any other problem at a party, it had been my experience that the help—which includes yours truly—is always blamed. More often than not, though, it’s one of the guests who starts rifling through pockets and purses in the guest room, not a staff person. We’re much too busy. But I knew in order to get information out of Charlotte, which, I admitted, was my chief purpose in racing over here this morning, I would have to park my proletarian sensibilities at the door.
“Have they talked to the landscapers?” Charlotte demanded. “Were
“I don’t know. Sorry.” We were both silent for a moment. I glanced down at Charlotte’s shoes—metallic flats—and said, as if it had just occurred to me, “Oh, nice shoes. Very pretty.”
Charlotte looked at me as if I were crazy. “You’re admiring my shoes? Why, do you want to order some to wear at your next catered event?”
“Sorry, Charlotte. I just think they’re lovely. Wait a minute—didn’t Marla or someone tell me you lost a pair in Doc Finn’s car?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “That was another thing this young fellow asked me about. Did I remember when I had left my shoes in Doc Finn’s car? No, I told him, because I’d never been in Doc Finn’s car. I have no idea how they got there. And when I heard they’d been in the car of a person who’d died in a car accident, I wanted to throw them away, but the police insisted on keeping them as evidence.”
“Poor Doc Finn,” I said. “We waited and waited for him at Ceci O’Neal’s wedding, but he never showed. We didn’t know he was dead.”
At the mention of Ceci O’Neal, Charlotte’s eyes became hooded. Well. So…judging by Charlotte’s guilty reaction, the erased name “O’Neal” on the Attenborough blackboard meant something. I just didn’t know what.
“Do you know the O’Neals?” I ventured. “I thought I saw their name on your blackboard when I came over with Jack. But I didn’t see you at the O’Neal wedding—”
Charlotte stood up. “The O’Neals? How are you spelling that?” When I told her, she said, “No, that doesn’t ring a bell. Well, I must be getting over to Gold Gulch. Thank you for the pie.”
“You’re certainly welcome,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. I got to my feet and gathered up my purse. Doggone it, so much for active investigation as a substitute for grieving. I was zero for three in my questioning of Charlotte. She hadn’t seen anyone leave the spa dining room when Jack did—or so she said. She had no idea how her shoes had ended up in Doc Finn’s Cayenne—or so she said. And what ever her connection was to the O’Neals, she wasn’t going to share it.
I had gleaned one possibly useful nugget, though: Victor Lane had asked Charlotte to invest in his spa. So… the spa was having money problems? Was that what Jack had been looking for in the Smoothie Cabin? Indications of money problems at the spa? Why would he do that? I had no idea.
Charlotte had turned to her large living room window, where birds were flocking to her feeder. She’d pulled a hankie from out of nowhere and was dabbing her eyes. My feeling of being ill at ease increased. Funny how we get used to hugging people as a way to comfort them, and then when that’s not an option—
“Do you think he loved me?” Charlotte blurted out. She continued to stare out the window. “He never said he did.”
My mouth turned dry. In fact, I’d been unsure of what Jack’s true intentions, emotions, et cetera in the Charlotte Department had been. But what good—or bad—would it do to say that now? I settled for the verbal
