The Corpse With the Golden Nose (14 page)

The next thing to happen is that Suzie Soul detaches herself from the group and makes her way, unsteadily, across the forty feet or so between our groups, waving her glass and shouting as she approaches. She's clearly drunk, her face is a sneering mask, her lipstick smeared, she's holding her glass tightly, she's spilling her drink. She's walking in an almost straight line, but crossing one foot in front of the other as she progresses, surprisingly quickly. She's long ago mastered the alcohol and towering heels combination, but she's swaying. No one is paying her any attention except her husband, who is looking panic-stricken as he follows her into the light. His arms are flailing. He's trying to grab her, but she's keeping ahead of him and pulling her arms and shoulders away from his grasp. As she speaks, all eyes turn to her. Or do they?
No, Raj doesn't take his eyes off Ellen. He still looks aghast.

Suzie Soul waves her glass toward Ellen and shouts, “You're a lush, Ellen Newman. Put your glass down and go home to your sorry, pathetic little life.” Suzie's over-full lips seem to be sneering, her nose seems to be wrinkled and her teeth are certainly on display.
It's hard to tell what's due to plastic surgery and what's a real expression. One thing I can see is that she's lost pretty much every micro-expression a face can usually have. They've been nipped, tucked, sliced, and filled away. But her eyes speak volumes: she's not focusing on Ellen, due to the drink, but she's full of hate. Why would Suzie hate Ellen so much?

Now I must consider Ellen's reaction to this. When it happened, I turned back to look at her as quickly as I could, now I do it again, and I can see what is the last glimmer of disdain on her face.
But Ellen replaces disdain with dismay very quickly. Interesting.

As she reaches us, Suzie continues with, “And take your damned cop with you.” She's looking at Bud as she says this. He looks very surprised, and leans away from the woman. Suzie is now almost showing her top gum, so curled is her upper lip—
I think it would be completely curled if it were still capable of such a movement
. She's pointing toward Bud with an angry hand, her decorated, false fingernails glinting. She's pushed past Serendipity, who, although much taller, has given ground between herself and Raj to this woman on a mission. As she enters our circle, we all lean back from Suzie a little, all except Ellen, who moves toward her, in an almost threatening way. It is at this moment that Sammy Soul reaches his wife's arm and grasps it.

Now all the attention in the room has completely shifted toward the Souls. It's impossible for me to see any expressions other than those that relate to this latest outburst, so there's nothing more I can see that's of use.

I sighed, stood up from the desk, and reached for the little bottle of water that stood on the nightstand. I unscrewed the top and drank the whole thing in one hit. I felt dissatisfied. What had I learned? Well, a few things were of interest. I'd file them away to tell Bud in the morning, but I wasn't sure I'd spotted the reactions of a murderer.
Oh, damn and blast it!

Maybe a good night's sleep and a fresh start in the morning would help. I was quite convinced, as I snuggled into the comforting, downy bedding, that
someone
had killed Annette, but I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I was probably getting farther away from proving it than I had been when we'd arrived.
Hey,
you only got here a few hours ago. Give yourself a break, and get some sleep
, I told myself sternly. And sleep I did—but I had terrible dreams about Angus, which was a very bad thing.

WHEN I WOKE THE NEXT
morning I felt dreadful. The first thing I was aware of was that I'd obviously been crying in my sleep. My eyes were sore and puffy, my head was stuffed up, and I was feeling anything but fresh. A sweaty, restless night had brought me to this. As I examined the damage in the bathroom mirror, fleeting images from my dreams haunted me. I hadn't had a night when I'd dreamed of Angus, with all the pain that involved, for months. Not since Bud and I had decided to give our relationship a go. And I hadn't missed those dreams.

As usual, after such a night, I wasn't feeling positive or chipper. The clock told me it was six thirty, so I showered, did the best I could with my makeup, blow-dried my hair, then pulled it into its everyday ponytail. I struggled into the stretch khaki pants I'd bought in a moment of delight at having lost five pounds—which I'd obviously regained, judging by the snugness with which they were fitting. The multi-colored stripy shirt I teamed them with covered most of my lumps and bumps. I was as ready as I was going to be. I wasn't looking forward to a gourmet Irish breakfast in the company of a bunch of murder suspects. I glanced at the underwhelming list of motives for murder that I'd written the night before. Now almost everything in me was telling me that my initial instinct had been wrong: that she'd probably killed herself after all.
I hate being wrong.

It's funny how time flies when you're getting yourself ready to face the day. I was surprised to see that it was already seven thirty I was due to meet Bud in fifteen minutes. There was a knock on my door.

“It's me, Cait.” Bud spoke just loudly enough for me to hear. “Can I come in?”

I opened the door and smiled. “Of course you can.”

Bud looked me up and down, a concerned expression furrowing his brow. “Bad night?” he asked gently.

“Is it that obvious?” I thought I'd done a pretty good job of making myself look presentable.

“Only to me—no one else would know,” replied Bud, trying to backtrack.

I shook my head. “It's okay, I know what you mean,” I sighed. I felt completely deflated.

“I didn't sleep that well myself,” Bud added, trying to be sympathetic.
He's not very good at it.
“Comfortable bed, sure, but uncomfortable thoughts. I'm beginning to think that coming here was a bad idea.”

“Why so?” I sat on the edge of the bed, and Bud plopped himself, into the chair at the desk.

Bud considered for a moment, then said grimly, “You
know
I believe that Annette killed herself?” I nodded. “Well, I don't think that Ellen can accept it, so she's pulled me into her world to prove that her sister really
did
kill herself. I don't think Ellen really believes it was murder. I don't see how she
can
. I think that the only real help I can give her is to tell her it was clearly a suicide, and that she has to somehow accept all the evidence and move on.”

“I agree,” I said.

Bud looked surprised. “You think Annette really
did
kill herself? That a woman with a keen sense of smell
would
have done it that way, after all?” He spoke as though he suspected some sort of ruse on my part.

“I've been working it through, Bud,” I said with resignation, “and I think it's a distinct possibility. Annette, for some reason we don't know, loathed herself so much that she chose
that
method. She drank a whole bottle of wine, taped up the truck windows, and sat there breathing in the fumes until she lost consciousness and died. I don't know why she wouldn't have chosen to take a simple overdose, but there it is. We might have to accept that we'll never know why, the same way Ellen will have to accept it. It would be a hell of a lot easier for us, don't you think?”

“Sure . . .” Bud replied thoughtfully. “Right, then, let's go and see what this Pat Corrigan has for us by way of an Irish breakfast. I can't believe it, but I'm starving. You okay?”

It was as though a weight had been lifted from the two of us.

“Yes,” I said, smiling,
really
meaning that I felt a million times better than when he'd walked into my room. “Yes,” I said, smiling. I felt a million times better than when he'd walked into my room ten minutes earlier.

Bud kissed me on the cheek as he gallantly ushered me onto the landing. It was a happy couple that descended the As we came down, the Wisers entered the front door, which was being held open by a scowling Lauren Corrigan.

Good mornings were exchanged as Lauren relieved the Wisers of their outerwear. The sun was glinting on the lake below, and the sky was already a cloudless bright blue. Even so, the Wisers seemed to be bundled up in clothing that suggested they might be off to tackle the north face of the Eiger. They took off rugged walking boots and layers of cotton, fleece, and waterproofs, and one backpack each. It seemed a little over the top for simply walking up the hairpin road.

“Have you two come straight here from your house?” I asked, curiously.

The both laughed. “Oh, heaven's no,” replied Marlene Wiser, still grinning, as she handed a second scarf to Lauren. “We thought we'd better work up an appetite, so we came around the back way.”

“The back way?” asked Bud. Now he was curious too.

“This house is on top of a hill, right?” replied Gordy. Bud and I nodded. “If you continue around the bend in Lakeshore Road down there for about five minutes, rather than coming into the Close, you come to a trail that'll take you up around the base of the hill to its backside—I don't mean it
that
way, Marlene”—he grinned at his wife wickedly—“and then you can follow the trail up to the top of the hill. It takes a while, because the terrain is rocky and loose underfoot, and the old apple cart track's crumbled away long since. We're used to it. It's a grand walk.”

“Apple cart track?” Bud was holding a discarded backpack.

“Ah yes,” replied Gordy. “Behind the hill, on its
backside
,” and here he grinned again like a naughty schoolboy, “there is a natural depression, not quite a cave, but a big gouge out of the side of the hill. Fred Newman, that's Ellen and Annette's father, was always a man for making the best of things, as you can see from this house. Built it with his own hands, he did. He fashioned a structure that covered this bite out of the hill that he'd found, and he used it as an apple store. In fact, that's how I came to know him. When he needed less storage because he was growing more grapes than apples, I rented the space from him. We'd haul our apples up in our ‘apple cart,' which is what we called the rust bucket pickup we used back then. We'd bring the apples up to the store for the winter then bring them down again to sell. Over the years, since we stopped using it, the little road we'd worked out just got worn away by the weather. Now there's almost nothing left of it. Like the orchards, eh, Marlene?”

“Oh, Gordy, don't start off on
that
again.” The woman rolled her eyes as she looked lovingly at her husband. “You're obsessed with those orchards. They're subdivisions now, with a lot of happy people because they have lovely new homes to live in. Come on then, where's this food we're all waiting for?” she asked cheerily, turning toward Lauren Corrigan. “We see all those folks coming up here every day for breakfast, but this'll be our first time, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Lauren Corrigan grumpily. She didn't have a chance to add more because just then the front door was opened by Rob MacMillan, showily allowing his wife to enter ahead of him. She looked as though she'd had an even worse night than me: her eyes were red-raw, as was her nose. Of course, she
might
have developed a sudden head cold, but I reckoned I recognized the signs of a night of tears.

“Come on, Colin, don't dawdle,” she said in motherly tones, looking up at the six-footer who was trailing behind her. Colin MacMillan's thin frame supported a head of red hair that seemed too big for his narrow shoulders to carry. His pock marked skin spoke of battles with acne, and the shortness of his sleeves and jeans suggested a recent spurt of growth. One earbud dangled loosely around his neck, the other was lodged firmly in his right ear. He had an air of terminal boredom about him. “Take your shoes off,” his mother instructed him as he crossed the threshold.

“Leave the boy alone,” rumbled Rob MacMillan.

I decided to follow the Wisers toward the dining area, rather than engage with the MacMillan family, as I didn't feel up to it. Bud ambled along with me.

Lauren called, “There's pots of tea in the lounge. You can all go in there out of my way for now. Help yourself.” Clearly, she was being her usual, hospitable self.

Sure enough, a sideboard was bedecked with cups and saucers, milk jugs, sugar bowls, and two pots of tea—each wearing a natty little knitted jacket.

“Oh—I haven't seen a striped tea cozy like this since I used to have breakfast at my Gran's house,” I commented with pleasure.

“I make them,” Lauren said, clearly very proud to have her work complimented. “I'm a big knitter.”

“Oh, really?” I replied. “My sister, too,” I felt glad to find something that might help me connect with the woman. “She lives in Perth, Australia, now. Loves to knit. She can knit anything. Makes her own patterns. Likes circular needles.”

Lauren was transformed. Her face was alight with enthusiasm, her voice very different from its usual, bored tones. “Oh, me too. The tea cozies are just little things that I've made to add a bit of a mood for our breakfast guests, but I make a lot of other pieces too. My project pages on Ravelry.com are quite busy.”

I worried that Lauren might mistake my sister's hobby for my own. To be honest, I never got the hang of knitting. I was hoping Lauren wouldn't force me to feign interest. Luckily, she rushed off to attend to the needs of the new arrivals.

“Good morning,” said Grant Jackson, who had managed to creep up behind me unheard.

“Oh, good morning,” I said, forcing a jollity into my voice that I didn't feel, as I turned to face him.

Grant placed his hands together as if in prayer, bowed his head and whispered “Namaste.”