Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen (13 page)

“So bad,” I said very slowly, “that she might do something to make that happen?”

His blue eyes studied me. “What are you saying, Merry?”

“I don't know. I don't know if I'm saying anything. Do you want more soup?”

“Thanks. Don't get up. I can serve myself.”

Someone had tipped the
Gazette
off to the results of the autopsy. Dad had said that the town council had been secretly informed of the cause of Nigel Pearce's death. Sue-Anne Morrow was on the town council. That same someone had quite possibly also placed an anonymous call to the offices of the
Muddle Harbor Chronicle
. Sue-Anne herself admitted that she'd gone to our neighboring town, and chief rival, suspecting they'd be up to something. Did she suspect? Or did she know?

Was it possible Sue-Anne was deliberately spreading the news, deliberately harming Rudolph, to make our well-meaning, but generally hapless, mayor look bad?

Was it possible, I thought with a frisson of shock, that Sue-Anne had done more than just spread the news? Had Sue-Anne decided to
make
the news herself?

Ridiculous.
Sue-Anne might be ambitious, but show me a politician who wasn't. Besides, if Dad's and my suspicion that the death of Nigel Pearce was somehow related to the sabotaging of George's tractor, I couldn't imagine Sue-Anne Morrow, in her Chanel suit and Jimmy Choo ankle boots, climbing into the front of an antique tractor armed with a wrench, not to mention having the knowledge of how said tractor worked.

Mattie'd had enough napping. He dropped a drool-soaked toy into Alan's lap with a woof.

“Not now, buddy,” Alan said, putting the toy on the table. “Mealtime is not playtime.” Mattie bounded off to find something else with which to entertain his guest.

I served huge plates of bread pudding for dessert. Mustn't let it go to waste.

Did I mention that I love bread pudding? Vicky made it with her French bread and plenty of cream and eggs, topped with a sauce of maple syrup and brown sugar for a sinfully rich filling and light, crisp topping.

Alan had two giant helpings.

“Coffee?” I asked, scraping the bottom of my bowl.

“Better not. Time I was on my way.” He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “That was great, Merry. Thanks.”

“You can thank Vicky.”

Mattie shoved his toy up against Alan's leg. Alan grabbed it and gave him a minute of play, and I walked him downstairs to the door.

He put on his coat and wrapped a long scarf around his neck. He opened the door and then hesitated. I wondered if he were going to give me a
proper
good-night.

Instead he mumbled, “Thanks again,” and left. I shut the door behind him and leaned against
it.

“Y
ou're looking quite pleased with yourself this morning,” Jackie said.

“I am not,” I replied. “Don't try to distract me. Haven't I told you not to be using your phone at work?”

“I wasn't.”

“Jackie, you were!”

“It's not as if we're busy, Merry.”

I sighed. Busy or not wasn't the issue. Like most shopkeepers I knew, I had to continually remind my staff to switch off their phones during working hours. We might not have any customers at the moment, but I didn't want to chance someone coming in needing help and being greeted with the back of my salesclerk as she made arrangements for a hot date tonight with her boyfriend.

“Anyway,” she said, pouting, “it's important.”

“Is the shop on fire? No? Then any calls you have to make can wait until your break.”

“I was phoning England. They might be at tea or something when it's my break. The time's different there, you know.”

“I do know that, yes.” When I opened the shop and became a boss for the first time, I vowed never to discuss my decisions with my staff. I would make firm pronouncements, and that would be the end of it. That resolution had gone out the window the moment Jackie first plopped her skinny rear end on the stool behind the counter. “You were phoning someone in England? Who do you know in England?”

“No one,
now
!”

“You don't mean Nigel Pearce?”

She sighed. “All right, if you must know. I sent an e-mail to
World Journey
magazine last night. I expressed my condolences on their loss and told them that I'd been talking to him just hours, maybe even minutes, before he died. I didn't get an answer, so I figured I'd better phone. Talk to them in person.”

“Jackie, please don't tell me you were planning to ask them if they were still going to run his feature on Rudolph.”

She tossed her hair. “So what if I was? He took tons of pictures, here in the shop and later at the party. The magazine might still want to use them. Maybe he sent them part of his article before he died. They wouldn't want that to go to waste, would they?” She slapped her forehead. “His camera! I wonder what happened to his camera. Did you see it when you found him? Do you think the police have it? If they need it for evidence they might keep it for months!”

I shook my head. I should have been used to it by now, but Jackie's self-absorption could still take me aback. “If you must know, he had his camera with him when he died. So the police have it. As for phoning the magazine, I don't think it's a very respectful thing to do, but I can't stop you. Just don't phone them when you're working, okay?”

“Do you think they'll send someone else to finish the story? Maybe like as a tribute to Nigel or something?”

I'd worked in magazines for many years, although not on the editorial side. If Nigel was a freelancer, the story had probably been his idea. He'd almost certainly combined it with another trip to the States. Maybe someone back at
World Journey
would pick up on the idea, but they wouldn't have anyone ready to jump on a plane at a moment's notice. Nigel had not been reporting on something that was exactly high priority. “No,” I said in answer to Jackie's question.

“It's just that . . . well, it was my big chance, right? He showed me some of the pictures he took of me. They were great. He said
World Journey
has a huge readership. Who knows who would have seen my picture?” She sounded so sad I almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

I don't know what she expected, but I did know that talent scouts from major modeling agencies or Hollywood casting companies didn't scour random magazines hunting for a random shot of the next big thing innocently waiting on customers in Rudolph, New York.

“Why'd you leave
Jennifer's Lifestyle
, anyway?” she said. “I love love love that magazine. I'm going to have a home decorated exactly like Jennifer's myself one day. Although I'll have an apartment in the city, not out in the country like
her. It must have been your dream job, Merry. You lived in Manhattan. Like on
Sex and the City
. You worked with Jennifer Johnstone! But you came back to Rudolph, the most boring place on planet Earth. I guess I could understand it if your folks were sick and needed care or something. But they're not.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” I said. I wasn't going to talk to Jackie about my life. Not that she really cared anyway.

Why did I leave what truly was my dream job in the city I loved?

Jennifer Johnstone is one of the doyennes of modern American style, with an emphasis on casual outdoor living and the enjoyment of entertaining. Her empire includes magazines, TV cooking shows, and a chain of restaurants, as well as patio and garden furniture and accessories. The magazine she founded is one of the most popular in the country. I'd been working for the magazine for five years when Jennifer turned eighty. At a huge party for her staff, Jennifer announced that she was semi-retiring. She would no longer do public appearances or come into the office, but would direct the company from her hundred-acre oceanfront property on Long Island. Her granddaughter, Erica, would be the new face of the magazine part of the company. No one was pleased with the news. Erica was pampered, spoiled, and massively insecure. Unlike her grandmother, Erica had little confidence in her own taste, therefore had no time for anyone who disagreed with her. The editor in chief quit the next day, and several department heads left with him. Erica brought in some friends from Smith College to take their places.

I thought we had to give her a chance. Jennifer was only as far away as Long Island, and we needed to see how much control she was going to exert on her granddaughter.

My longtime boyfriend and unofficial fiancé, Max Folger, was a copyeditor with the magazine. He saw Jennifer's departure and the subsequent shake-up as his chance to grab the brass ring. Instead of working hard to impress the new boss, he took the easy route and slept with her.

Erica was short and thick-waisted, blessed with small black eyes, a large nose, and thin lips. But she was extremely rich, and money can buy a lot of beauty. She had a reputation of being somewhat of a, shall we say, fun-loving single woman. She regularly made the gossip columns, on the arm of one handsome man or another, getting in and out of limousines in scandalously short skirts, dining in the most fashionable restaurants, or partying all night long in the most trendy nightclubs. Rumor had it that when Jennifer handed the business over, it was on the condition that Erica give up the party life and settle down. Some people whispered that Jennifer had a deadline for the arrival of great-grandchildren as tight as any she'd ever had for her magazine.

And so Erica announced her engagement to the guy who just happened to be her current arm candy. Max Folger.

I couldn't continue working at the magazine. Not if I would see Max every day, now an executive editorial director ensconced in a big corner office with a fabulous view of the East River. Nor did I want to run into Erica as she breezed through the offices air-kissing everyone in sight and calling them sweetie and honey pie before stabbing them in the back.

I didn't even want to stay in New York City. And so I
came home to Rudolph and Mom and Dad, licking my wounds. I planned to hide out for a couple of months and feel sorry for myself.

But that wasn't my parents' way, and before I knew what was happening, Dad had found out that the people who owned the small home design shop next to Rudolph's Gift Nook were planning to retire. The town needed, he said, a store that specialized in non-tacky Christmas decorations. The local craftspeople needed a store that would sell their wares. Wasn't interior decoration what I knew best?

Oh, and look, one of the upstairs apartments in Mrs. D'Angelo's big Victorian has just come available.

I hadn't for a moment regretted my decision to take the apartment, open the shop, and stay in Rudolph.

The few of my friends who were still working at
Jennifer's Lifestyle
told me that circulation was plummeting, but everyone was hoping that Erica's giant wedding, planned for the coming summer, would give it a boost. The wedding would run over several special issues. The food. The gardens. The bride. The couple's new home. The honeymoon.

I finally laughed, realizing that I was well rid of Max Folger as well as
Jennifer's Lifestyle
. I hoped Max wouldn't mind having a team of photographers following him on his honeymoon, telling him where to stand and deciding what he would wear.

“Do you think,” Jackie said, returning to her favorite subject, “the cops would let me have a peek at the camera? I could send myself some of the best shots, and they could keep the camera?”

“No,” I said. “I'll be in the office if you need me.”

“It probably doesn't matter,” she muttered to my
retreating back. “The really good pictures would have been done on Sunday.”

I turned. “What do you mean?”

She fluffed her hair. “Nigel was going to have a
private
photo shoot with me. I was going to go around to his hotel after work with my elf costume. The big fireplace and the tree and all the decorations in the lobby of the Yuletide would make a great background. He's what they call a freelancer, you know. That means that he doesn't work for any one magazine or paper but takes all kinds of jobs. He even”—she leaned over the counter, eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed—“works for
fashion
magazines sometimes.”

She slumped back. The sparkle died. “I mean, he worked for. It's so unfair.”

“Unfair for Nigel Pearce.”

“Kyle's all happy now. Do you think I should break up with him, Merry? He doesn't want what's best for me. He was so mad when I told him I didn't want to go out after the parade party after all. I had to go home early and get my beauty sleep if I was meeting Nigel the next day for my photo shoot.”

“Maybe Kyle didn't want you to make a mistake, Jackie.”

“What mistake? Just a couple of pictures.”

I had my own questions about what these pictures might have entailed and what sort of promises Nigel would have made in exchange for them . . . I could probably guess. One or two shots would have been taken in the lobby. And then the light would have been wrong and people would have been wandering into the background, and Nigel would suggest they go to his room for the close-ups.

Jackie was a pretty young woman, but she knew nothing
about the larger world. Her good looks, slim but curvy figure, and bouncy personality had made her someone special at Rudolph High School and in the small community in which we lived. But in the magazine and fashion worlds she would have been nothing out of the ordinary.

I thought about Kyle. He'd been angry at Jackie at the reception. No, change that. Not angry at Jackie, but at Nigel. Did Kyle realize, as anyone except a young woman with stars in her eyes would, that Nigel was nothing but a slightly sleazy middle-aged man on the make? Or did he think Nigel really did have something to offer Jackie? Something that would whisk her away from Rudolph, away from him, into a life of money and glamour Kyle could only imagine?

“What did you and Kyle do after the party?” I kept my tone light, as though I didn't much care. Just making polite conversation.

Jackie's eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know, anyway?”

Okay, so I had to improve my acting skills. “No reason. Call me if you need anything.”

But Jackie never could resist the chance to talk about herself. “We went to The Elves' Lunch Box for dinner. We were supposed to go to some big party over at Muddle Harbor, but I changed my mind. Kyle was mad—he gets so jealous, you know. He dropped me at home and said he was going to the party by himself.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “He called me the next morning and apologized. He had a terrible time at the party, all by himself. He can be so sweet sometimes.”

I went into my office. Kyle and Jackie had gone for
something to eat after the party. Kyle had then dropped Jackie at her house.

It didn't matter, I reminded myself, where Kyle was at the time Nigel took sick. The poison had been in the Charles Dickens cookie served at the reception. The killer didn't have to be anywhere near Nigel when he died.

My hand reached for my phone. Should I call the police? Tell Detective Simmonds what I'd learned? She was new to town; she didn't know these people the way I did. Then again, I didn't want to get Kyle or Sue-Anne into trouble just because I thought they'd benefited from the death of Nigel Pearce. Come to think of it, plenty of people benefited from the death of Nigel Pearce. The entire business community of Muddle Harbor, for one.

Cui bono?
Who benefits?

I looked up as Jackie called, “She's in the back.”