Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle. Mary Jane Maffini
night. I’d stayed up later than usual looking at the cookbooks Josey had dropped off. More Than You Ever Asked About Pies and The Skewer Encyclopedia were glossy and larger than you could ever imagine. Icing! Icing! Icing! looked small but sweet. I went through them trying to figure out how to structure my own project. My night had alternated between hopeful thoughts of Marc-André and nightmares about cooking. The worst one was treading water next to a bad-tempered goose in a giant pot of stock that was slowly coming to a boil. I was not too groggy to see the significance.
I had just stepped out of the shower and was standing dripping wet when the doorbell rang. Times like that, it was really handy to have the door-answering machine Josey had rigged up for me the previous fall.
“Leave a message after the beep,” I thought merrily as I twirled my hair into a damp ponytail. I wasn’t worried. Philip wasn’t likely to show up so early on a work day, if ever, and all my friends appeared to be able to walk through walls.
But the doorbell kept ringing. The message kicked in: I can’t come to the door right now. Leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you. Josey’s voice is on the recording, as mine lacks authority. I rethought that strategy when I heard the voice of Sgt. Sarrazin.
“Answer your door, madame,” he said, in that curiously flat delivery that the police seem to have perfected.
One point to him. I wrapped myself in a towel and shouted from the other side. “Give me a minute.”
Three minutes later, I was dressed, but my fresh cotton T-shirt and my Bermudas were already clinging, not in a good way. Tolstoy had preceded me to the door and was parked there, tail drumming musically. Visitors! One of us really loves them.
When I yanked the door open, Tolstoy nuzzled up to Sarrazin, who patted him on the head then pointed to the box on my door. “That stupid contraption is a terrible idea. Why would anyone stick an ugly box like that on their front door?”
I said, “It works for me. Usually.”
He actually shivered in the heat. “Well, it gives me the creeps.”
“Really?”
“I have no idea where you would get something like that.”
“A friend made it for me. After all that trouble last year when I needed to be left alone by the media and all that. I’m sure you remember.”
“I’ll never forget it. Who made it?”
What kind of inquisition was this? I couldn’t see any harm in the answer. “Josey Thring. But she made it for me as a special gift. She doesn’t make them for... Is there a licensing issue or something?”
“No. I just wondered where you’d get one. And why you’d want one. You don’t have the media chasing after you this year. I should have known it was that Thring kid. Comes from a pretty bad family.”
“I’m a writer, and I always need to protect my time. I don’t want distractions.”
He glanced at my mop of wet hair. “And were you writing?”
“Are you here to see how I spend my time?” Was this some new tactic by the tax people? Find out if people are really doing what they claim in their deductions? Use the local cops as moles?
He glowered at me. He had the eyebrows for it, and the seventeen-inch neck added impact. “I’m here to find out what your relationship was with Daniel Dupree.”
“I didn’t have one. I explained that when I called you yesterday. Why do you keep asking about that?”
Again with the bearlike look. “Here’s the way it works: I am the cop. I ask the questions, madame. It’s the law.”
I didn’t ask what exact law that was. Instead I said, “You may as well come in. It’s still a bit cooler in the house.”
He followed me through the door and into the living room. “You weren’t really straight with me about that relationship. Try again. Get it right this time. It will be easy. Then I’ll leave.”
“I have it right. He had business dealings with my former husband. I don’t think I ever talked to him.”
He stopped and blinked. “Didn’t you used to have some chairs in here?”
“My friend borrowed them. Try the sofa.” The sofa was lumpy, so maybe it would cut his visit short. I didn’t offer coffee or lemonade.
He plunked himself down. I swear the sofa groaned. He said, “He was your ex-husband’s partner?”
Tolstoy climbed up next to him on the sofa. I didn’t care.
As I walked toward the kitchen to get a chair, I said, “In some business dealings. Philip’s not...”
“Gay?”
“Not really sexual at all. At least, I never really noticed it. Now you’ve made my head hurt.”
“That’s all this Daniel Dupree was?” He held up his hand. “Let’s review this: you don’t need to know why I’m asking. You just need to answer. Did you see him often?”
“Maybe twice or three times. I told you that.”
“Are you sure, madame?”
“Of course, I’m sure.”
“Did you have a reason to be angry with him?”
“No!”
“Take your time, madame.”
“My ex is taking quite a while to liquidate his assets as part of our divorce settlement. I was angry at him. But he’s still alive. I never thought about this Dupree. That is the truth.”
“Hmm. Your divorce settlement. I’d heard about that. I hear you were pretty upset about it.”
That’s the trouble with living in St. Aubaine. There’s a very good chance that everyone in town knows your business. Financial problems are a preferred source of local chatter, running a close third to fractured love lives and extramarital flings. I was pretty sure that Sarrazin had done his homework and knew that I was behind on my municipal taxes and a few bucks short of paying the Hydro bill.
“Maybe you blamed Daniel Dupree for your financial problems.”
“Are you listening to me? I was angry at Philip for stalling. I still am, not that I see what that has to do with anyone but me.”
“And this Dupree was involved too?”
I massaged my temple. For some reason it felt like I might have a migraine coming on.
“Only in that he and Phil probably still had business dealings.”
“But he was contributing to your financial problems?”
“It’s really just a cash crunch,” I said.
“Did you hold Dupree responsible for this, madame?”
“What? How could he be responsible?”
“Uh-uh-uh. Who asks the questions?”
“He has nothing to do with it because...” I paused. Hang on. Maybe he did. If Philip was having trouble getting my share of the community property into my hands, was that because of Dupree?
“Yes, madame? You have something to add?”
“It’s possible that one of the reasons Phil has been slow to settle is because of the business dealings they have together, but I’m not aware of it. You’d have to ask Philip about that.”
“I plan to.”
“Oh. Well. Good.”
“But I am talking to you right now.”
What was the question? “No. I didn’t blame him. I prefer to blame Philip. It’s familiar, and it just feels