Final Fondue (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) (12 page)

Val felt a chill as if she’d been doused with ice water. A prowler outside a house where two preschoolers lived scared her far more than a maze stalker. She clutched her cousin’s kitchen counter to steady herself. Maybe Monique had jumped to a conclusion with no proof. “What did you see out there?”

Her cousin stomped from the sliding door to the counter. With her face flushed and her eyes narrow, she gave off vibes of anger. “Food wrappers and a drink can. Someone was out there long enough to need a snack, staking out the house.”

Possibly the strangler, looking for his next victim.
Val’s stomach knotted up. The maze incident had almost convinced her that if the murderer had mistaken Fawn for someone else, Jennifer was probably the intended victim. But with a prowler here, Val’s fear that the rope had been meant for her own neck returned. Granddad had driven behind her last night to make certain no one else did, but did he look in his rearview mirror to check if someone had followed him? An obvious precaution, but maybe he hadn’t taken it because, with his eyesight, he needed to concentrate on the road when he drove in the dark.

The good news was that the prowler had left something behind. “I hope you didn’t get rid of the trash, Monique.”

“I didn’t want to touch it with my bare hands.”

Val would stop mocking her cousin’s germ phobia. Sometimes it was useful. If there were fingerprints on the can, they would be intact. Val pointed to the phone on counter. “You’d better report this right away.”

Monique eyed the phone. “I’ll do it later, when my kids and my in-laws leave the house. I don’t want them frightened by seeing police in the backyard.”

The delay bothered Val. “You’re giving the prowler time to come back and pick up the trash.”

“It’s unlikely he’d return in the daylight.”

Unlikely, but possible.
By the time the children left with their grandparents, it might be too late to collect evidence. Next best thing—get the evidence now. “Go back outside and take photos of the trash. I assume you have latex gloves.” Anyone obsessed with germs would.

“Of course. What for?”

“I’m going to take that soda can to Chief Yardley. The prowler might have left fingerprints on it.”
Or even DNA.
“I’ll need a paper bag to put it in.”

Monique gave her the gloves and bag. They went outside. Except for the patio adjacent to the house and the clearing along the creek near the dock, the deep lot was dense with trees and bushes. The trash lay behind thick shrubbery, which would have provided complete cover at night and made it hard to see the prowler in the dawn or twilight. Val stood back from the trash and glanced around. She couldn’t see anything else the prowler had left behind.

Her cousin took photos of the collection of the trash from different angles. “I’ll ask my in-laws to take the children home with them to Philadelphia.”

“Maybe you should go to Philadelphia with them.”

“Maverick and I can’t leave. He’s doing a program at the boatyard, and I’m committed to taking pictures the whole weekend.” She stopped aiming her camera. “I doubt even a crime-scene technician would take more pictures of this pile of trash than I just did.”

Val moved closer to the trash and peered at it. The person who’d left it had consumed a canned espresso, a packet of macadamia nuts, and a bar of imported chocolate. Pricey snacks for your average vagrant, but not for Chef Henri. She could imagine him eating the nuts and the chocolate. He preferred freshly brewed coffee, but he couldn’t expect that in the woods around Monique’s house. Val picked up the drink can with a gloved hand, put it in a paper bag, and went back to the kitchen with her cousin.

Monique approached the coffee maker with her finger poised to press its buttons. “You want a latte or a cappuccino?”

“I don’t have time for either.” Val was running late after the backyard excursion. “Do you have the photos Granddad wanted?”

“In the envelope on the hall table. I included one of Fawn with a crab hat courtesy of my photo-editing software.”

“Thanks. See you tonight.” Val left with the drink can and the photos.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into Granddad’s driveway behind her mother’s rental car. In the rearview mirror, she saw a slate-gray Jaguar slow down in front of the house. The Jag’s driver made a U-turn and parked across the street. As she walked to the front porch, Payton unfolded his legs and climbed from the sports car.

He hailed her and joined her at the front door. “I’m glad to see you. I was afraid if I rang the bell, I’d wake up the whole house. I wanted to get here early and talk to Jennifer in private.”

Val unlocked the door and let him in. The house was so quiet, she decided to whisper. “It doesn’t sound like anyone’s awake. Is Jennifer expecting you?”

“No, but I’ll just knock quietly on her door.” He bounded up the stairs.

Did he know where to knock?
Val crept up the steps behind him and peered around the wall where the stairway turned. He rapped on the first door to the right in the hall. Jennifer must have told him which room was hers. He might have even visited that room between Friday night and this morning.

Val tiptoed back down the stairs. On the way to the kitchen, she stopped in the butler’s pantry to start the coffee maker. She preheated the oven for the casserole she’d assembled before going to the maze last night. At least this breakfast didn’t require her to make batter and stand over the stove as she’d done yesterday for the pancakes. While the oven preheated, she took the translucent envelope with the photos from her tote bag.

Monique had made five-by-seven prints of the wedding group, one with no one wearing a hat, one with Jennifer and Val in crab hats, and one with the two men in the hats. She’d also printed three-by-five close-ups of each guest, with and without hats, in full light and with the night effect. The crab hat Monique had superimposed on Fawn’s head fit her badly, but it was better than nothing.

The creaking floorboards above the kitchen alerted Val that her mother was awake. Granddad probably didn’t want to tell Mom why he’d requested these photos. Val hastily stuffed them back in the envelope. The photos weren’t safe from her mother’s prying eyes anywhere in the kitchen. She headed to the hall so she could slip the envelope under her grandfather’s bedroom door or give it to him if he was awake. As she reached the hall, Payton was standing at the foot of the staircase. Val was so startled that she dropped the envelope. It fell with a photo showing through the translucent envelope, a close-up of Fawn in a crab hat.

“I’ll pick that up for you,” Payton said.

Val stepped on the envelope to cover Fawn’s picture, possibly too late. He might have already glimpsed the photo. “That’s okay. I’ll get it.” She crouched to hide the envelope, slipped it from under her foot, and clapped it against her thigh. If it weren’t for the photos of Fawn, Val could just hand the envelope to Payton, saying her cousin had made prints for the wedding group.

She stood up, holding the envelope firmly against her thigh. “Was Jennifer awake?”

“Barely. She just got out of bed and didn’t want to talk until she had a shower and got dressed.” His eyes traveled from Val’s face to her thigh.

Val glanced down and stiffened. She’d put Fawn’s photo against her body and assumed that the visible side of the envelope would show the blank back of another photo. But no, one of the group photos was face out. Her hand wasn’t large enough to cover the whole picture. The envelope was too big to slip into her pants pocket. She slid it toward the rear of her thigh. “So you’ll be back in a little while to talk to her?”

“No, I’ll wait. She should be down soon.” He looked wistfully at the sitting room. “That coffee smells wonderful.”

Val regretted brewing the coffee. Without its aroma, he might have waited in his car or on the porch, not in the house he’d called a
dump
. She gestured toward the sofa. “Take a seat. I’ll bring you some coffee.”

“You don’t have to wait on me. I’ll serve myself. Just show me where the coffee is.” He gave her a toothy smile worthy of a successful politician.

What should she do?
Scurrying down the hall and shoving the envelope of photos under her grandfather’s door would just draw attention to it. What if the envelope was too thick to fit under the door? No, she’d better hold onto it until she could tuck it away somewhere when Payton wasn’t looking.

“Follow me.” She couldn’t have pressed her hand more tightly against her side if she were stanching the blood from a wound. When they reached the butler’s pantry, she said, “The coffee’s here. Help yourself.”

“Thank you.” He reached for a mug near the coffee maker. “Do you have any milk or cream?”

“Of course.” She went to the refrigerator.

Instead of waiting for her to bring him the cream, he tagged after her. She held the photos tightly with one hand. With the other, she opened the fridge door, took out a carton of half-and-half, and put it on the kitchen island.

He doctored his coffee, took a sip, and set his mug on the island. “If I’d gone to the maze last night, I wouldn’t have let Jennifer out of my sight. I feel guilty about helping my parents with their party instead of being there with her.”

Did he expect Val to absolve him of blame, or did he have another reason for confessing to guilt feelings? “You were at your folks’ party all night?”

“Until Jennifer called to tell me what happened. I drove to town and met her in the tavern.” Payton clutched his mug and stared into it, frowning as if it contained tea leaves he was having trouble reading. “Sarina and Noah were with her. They said you helped them find her at the maze. Do you think she panicked, or was someone really chasing her?”

Val shrugged. “I don’t know. I found the maze disorienting and was glad to have someone else with me. If I’d been alone, I might have freaked out.” Instead of allaying his guilt, she’d just rubbed it in—not on purpose, but she’d told the truth.

“Jennifer should leave Bayport for her own safety. She won’t listen to me. She might listen to the police. One of the guests at my parents’ party said you and your grandfather are friends with the police chief and even helped solve a murder recently. Could you use your influence and get the police to urge her to leave?”

Ah. That’s why Val couldn’t shake him off this morning. He wanted something from her. Why should she tell Payton she had no influence? He might be more forthcoming if he owed her something. “Okay, I’ll talk to the police. Have you and Jennifer known each other long?”

He tilted his head from side to side. “Yes . . . and no. We met briefly when I was finishing law school, and then we met again in May. I’d thought about her during those ten years, but never imagined we’d see each other again.”

A ping from the stove told Val the oven had preheated. With one of her hands occupied holding the envelope of photos against her thigh, getting the casserole from refrigerator to oven would require several steps. Behaving like a one-armed woman might draw Payton’s attention to the arm she didn’t lift. She’d better distract him with questions.

She opened the refrigerator door. “How did you get together with Jennifer after so many years?”

“It was a blind date.” He raised the mug to his lips and slowly sipped the coffee. “A double date with Noah, actually.”

His hesitation gave her time to take out the casserole, put it on the counter near the oven, and close the fridge. “You both had blind dates? Or was Noah going out with someone who knew Jennifer?” Val opened the oven door.

“No. He was going out with Jennifer. He asked if I’d go on a blind date with one of her friends . . . Sarina, actually.” Payton ran a finger under the collar of his polo shirt. “When we all met for dinner, Jennifer and I were amazed to see each other. And, well, we hit it off.”

Val was so surprised she nearly lost her grip on the casserole as she put it in the oven. Strange that Payton would tell her he’d horned in on his friend. Whatever the reason for his frankness, she could now fathom why Noah or Sarina might play a nasty prank on the bride-to-be. Noah might resent Jennifer because she’d thrown him over in favor of Payton. Sarina might resent her because Jennifer had set her up with a rich, handsome man and then claimed him for herself. With the two losers roped into helping the two winners plan their marriage, an occasional note of irritation was bound to crop up. Val remembered Noah saying,
It’s not my wedding,
when Jennifer asked him about looking at venues. Sarina hadn’t shown any negativity, though, except in her treatment of Fawn.

Fawn.
With Payton in a talkative mood, this might be Val’s chance to find out if he had a connection to the dead bridesmaid, as Granddad had suggested. “You first met Jennifer ten years ago. She must have been quite young.”

“She was about to start college.”

“That’s when she was friends with Fawn. Did you know her too?”

“I met them both in passing.”

Val eyed the shoulder bag she’d left on the kitchen table. If Payton stayed where he was at the counter, she could tuck the envelope into her bag and he wouldn’t get a glimpse of the photos. She walked toward the table as nonchalantly as she could with one arm glued to her leg. “Jennifer came back into your life after ten years. When did you reconnect with Fawn?”

“After Jennifer invited her to be part of the wedding. Jennifer had a get-together for her attendants. I stopped by for a few minutes.” Payton crossed the room toward the table and set his mug on it. “Fawn was her one link to the past and the place where she grew up. Jennifer’s really broken up about what happened.”

Val felt Payton’s hovering presence. So much for the idea of putting the photos in her bag. Her right arm ached. She longed to move it and flex her fingers, but she was afraid the envelope would slip to the floor. “Jennifer has no family or other friends where she grew up?”