A Masquerade of Muertos (Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries Book 5) (34 page)

“We’re done,” Phillips told me as I passed.

“Thanks. Mick, hold up, please.” I switched off the parlor’s overhead lights as the front door closed. “Give me just a minute.”

I ducked through the drapery passage and into Rose, walking gingerly as glass crunched underfoot. Leaving the folder on the empty food stand, I fetched the long matches from the fireplace and lit the remaining candle lantern. Red light flared.

“Ellen? What are these?” Kris asked from the archway. She had my printed photos in her hand.

“Wait, please,” I said.

I held the folder up between the lanterns and the black drapery. The crimson light from the lanterns turned the green to a dull, dark gray. A darker shade would certainly have appeared black.

Margo’s dress would have looked black in there. She would have been hard to see against the black walls, especially at a glance.

What do you want?

Gabriel hadn’t been alone when I looked in. I just hadn’t seen who was with him.

“Right. Mick, you can do Jonquil and Lily, but leave this side up.”

I blew out the candle, grabbed my folder, and brushed past Kris to turn on the lights. She followed, and I took the photos from her and slipped them into the green folder.

“Thanks. I’m going out for a bit.”

“What’s up?”

I hesitated. She’d suffered enough trauma. I didn’t want to add to her pain, but I also felt I owed her the truth.

“I think I know what happened. Kris, I believe it was an accident. I’m going to find out.”

“Going where?”

“To—the person I think was there.”

“Are you nuts? You can’t go alone! What if you’re wrong?”

“I don’t think I am.”

“That’s about as safe as ‘Hold my beer and watch this’! You should call Tony,” Kris said.

“I did. I haven’t heard back.”

I went upstairs for my purse and keys. Kris trailed after me.

“I thought you were all law-abiding leave-it-to-the-police.”

“Usually,” I said, “but if this was an accident, it’ll go easier on—the other party—if they turn themself in. Do you see?”

“‘Themself’?
From you, the grammar queen?”

“I’m trying to be discreet.”

Kris crossed her arms and leaned against the frame of the door to my suite. “If you want to be discreet about gender, you could say ‘hirself’ or ‘zemself.’ But being discreet about it at all implies that the person you’re protecting is female.”

When the mood strikes her, Kris can be an even more annoying pedant than me.

“Fine,” I said, stepping past her into the hall. “Yes, you’re right. If she turns herself in, the police may go easier on her.”

“And you think you can convince her to turn herself in?”

“I have to try.”

I moved to lock my suite and she stepped out of the way. “Take me with you,” she said, following me back down the stairs.

“No, Kris. You’ve had enough.”

“Then take Mick,” she said as we arrived in the hall.

Mick stood before us, fiddling with one of his earbuds. He looked up in response to our staring at him.

“All right,” I said. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Mick, will you escort me on an errand?”

¹⁸

M
y Google-fu is not the best in the world, but while Mick fired up his patchwork ride I was able to find Margo’s address from her phone number on the guest list. Her apartment was on the south side of town, not far from Gina’s though in a less pricey complex, a group of blocky buildings in pueblo-brown stucco.

“I think Margo may have been present when Gabriel died,” I told him. “I want to convince her to go to the police. You don’t need to say anything. You’re here to discourage her from doing anything...ill-advised.”

He shot me a sober glance. “OK.”

“You don’t happen to be a martial artist, do you?”

“Sorry, no.”

Rats.

“Well, I don’t think she is, either.”

I hope.

Actually, I didn’t know much about Margo. Wishing I’d asked Kris for information, I walked up two flights of stairs with Mick at my back.

A long pause followed my pressing the doorbell. I was about to knock when the door finally opened and Margo looked wearily out. Her expression turned to surprise as she recognized me.

“Hi, Margo. I’d like to talk if you have a minute. This is Mick, he works for me at the tearoom.”

She looked at us both, then shrugged and opened the door. We entered a small living room furnished with a black futon couch and two overstuffed armchairs, also black. A television sat on a table under the front window, which was covered with burgundy curtains. The coffee table in front of the couch was cluttered with books, comics, candlesticks, coffee mugs, and a statuette of a gargoyle.

The cape that Margo had fetched from the tearoom earlier lay over the back of a chair. My gaze snagged on the silver clasp: it was shaped like a Celtic knot. The same knot that was on Gabriel’s card.

Margo waved at the couch and sat in one of the chairs. I went to the chair with the cloak instead, and Mick stayed behind me.

“Is this Gabriel’s cloak?” I asked gently, laying my hand on the velvet.

Margo looked up at me with the fear of a child caught in mischief. “I made it for him. It’s mine, really. He—doesn’t need it now.”

She crossed her arms and leaned back, refusing to meet my gaze. I wondered how to reach her. 

“Do you still have your badge from the art exhibition?” I asked.

She said stiffly, “I lost it.”

“What about your hat?”

She froze, then said curtly, “I threw it away. It was ruined.”

“Ruined? How?”

She didn’t answer. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing; a bit fast, I thought.

“Margo, was there an accident?” I asked gently. “Did you perhaps tear your veil?”

A wave of dismay crossed her face. For a moment I thought she would crumble, but she drew herself up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“The police found a scrap of black tulle entangled with the exhibition badge that killed Gabriel.”

I took the photos out of my folder and stepped closer to lay them in her lap.

Margo burst into tears.

It took me a while to talk Margo into calling Tony, but at last she did it, after making me promise to stay with her. Mick was plainly uncomfortable, but I knew I’d get a chewing-out from Tony if I sent him away. I’d probably get one anyway. No need to make it worse.

Tony arrived within ten minutes of receiving Margo’s call. He shot me an angry glance as he came in, but sat quietly and listened to Margo’s halting explanation.

“I was mad, and I pushed him away,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to push him over the rail.”

This was followed by a bout of tears. Tony waited with clenched jaw for her to subside.

“What were you doing up there?”

“Gabriel chased me. We—I—we argued, and I left the party, but he came after me. He wouldn’t let it drop. I kept trying to get away from him. I ran into the garden but there were people there so I went up the stairs.”

“What was the argument about?” Tony asked.

“H-he dumped me and never told me
why.
I didn’t know he’d hooked up with Kris until that meeting to plan the party,” she said, looking at me. “Then he writes that he
loves
me! I was mad.”

“He wrote you a letter? Do you have it?”

I tried to catch his eye, shaking my head slightly.

“No,” Margo said.

“The badge,” I said softly.

She turned an incredulous look at me. “How the hell did you know?”

“He wrote a note on the back of mine, too. Not a love note.” I turned to Tony. “Did you get my text?”

“Yeah.” Tony pulled the evidence bag with the badge out of his jacket and held it up in front of Margo. “This yours?”

More tears.

“You checked the back?” I asked softly.

Tony nodded. “It just says, ‘Love always, Gabriel’.”

“Why did he write that when it wasn’t
true?”
Margo cried, banging her fist on the arm of her chair.

“How did the badge get around his neck?” Tony asked her.

“I p-put it there. I told him I was giving it back. But he didn’t understand. He couldn’t see what it was because of that mask. He kept after me to go back to the party so I pushed him away. I felt my hat falling off and grabbed it. There was a tug and then it let go.”

She paused, giving little short, gasping sobs.

“At first I didn’t see him. It was like he just disappeared. Then I saw his mask—the jewels were glinting in the moonlight.”

I shivered, thinking of the gleams of light I had seen there. Would Tony even try to understand, if I told him? I tried again to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“I thought about jumping after him,” Margo added, “but I wasn’t sure it was high enough to kill me.”

I put a hand on her wrist. “You made the right choice.”

“Where’s the hat?” Tony said.

“I threw it in a dumpster out back of the plaza. Then I went back to the party. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I need you to come to the station and make a statement.”

Fear came into Margo’s face. “No—”

“They’ll have a counselor you can talk to,” I put in. “Right?” I added, looking at Tony.

“We’ll get you some help,” he told her, nodding. His attitude was not quite grudging, but not very enthusiastic.

Tony got up and went into the kitchen where he made some phone calls. I sat with Margo, trying to beam a bit of courage to her. She stopped crying, and sat staring at nothing. I overheard Tony telling someone to look for her hat.

When Tony’s backup arrived, we walked Margo out to the parking lot. Mick followed silently, subdued. Once Margo was in the back of the squad car, Tony turned to me.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“Would you have arrested her if you’d confronted her before I did?”

“I could arrest
you
right now for interference. I ought to.”

“If you must.”

He was silent. I could tell he was deeply angry by the flare of his nostrils, by his rapid breathing.

“I apologize for interfering,” I said. “But I stand by my action. She didn’t mean to kill Gabriel. Berating her won’t help.”

He took three more sharp breaths, then met my gaze. “I’m not the bastard you think I am,” he said, then stalked away.

I watched the squad car pull out and Tony follow on his bike. My sense of accomplishment had turned bitter.

Still in silence, Mick drove me back to the tearoom. When he parked and shut off the engine, I turned to him.

“Thank you. I’m sorry it was so...dramatic. I didn’t mean to make you sit through a scene.”

“S’OK,” he said. “Want me to come in and keep cleaning up?”

“If you’re willing.”

We went in and found Kris carrying a chair into Dahlia. She put it down and looked at me, half hopeful, half fearful.

“I need tea,” I said, sighing.