Icing Ivy (21 page)

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Toasting Tina
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J
ane fell back against the lobby wall. Tina,
dead?
Word spread quickly. People poured from the award room, chattering animatedly among themselves. Scared-looking coordinators ran back and forth, as if trying to herd the convention attendees but without knowing exactly where.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” came Kara Falcone's shrill voice, and the crowd grew quiet, turning to her. She stood a little above them on a low set of steps into the lobby gardens. “We've had some bad news. Please, we're now going directly into dinner in the grand ballroom. Down this corridor,” she said, pointing, and the mass began to move.

As eager as Jane was for information about Tina, she no longer wanted to attend the banquet; she wanted to go home. She'd speak to Stanley later anyway, get the full scoop. Before anyone could spot her, she hurried out the hotel's entrance to her car and got onto Route 46.

She got off on Packer Road. On the left was the house whose top floor was Daniel and Ginny's apartment. Wait until Daniel heard about Tina, she thought. Then she passed the fire station before turning right into the hills on Oakmont Avenue. The last tarnished light of this summer day gave Shady Hills an enchanted quality—a feeling of unbreakable tranquillity. How deceiving that feeling could be, Jane had discovered too many times.

She turned left onto her own street, Lilac Way, and climbed the hill to her house, a brown chalet-style Tudor on the left, behind a high holly hedge. Pulling into the driveway, she saw Nick and Florence tossing a Frisbee at the side of the house. The white flying saucer sailed high over Nick's head and he ran toward Jane, laughing.

“Mom! You weren't supposed to be back till tonight.”

“I know.” She gave him a chipper smile. “Change of plans.”

Florence was eyeing her suspiciously. “Missus . . . what happened?”

Jane laughed. “I can't put one over on you two, can I. Well, if you must know, Tina Vale, who was supposed to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award this afternoon, died.”

Florence put a hand to her mouth. “Died?”

“Mm. I don't know the details yet. Stanley will tell me.”

Jane entered the house through the garage. Florence was already in the kitchen, waiting for her. “Are you okay, missus?”

“Me? I'm fine. Tired, that's all.”

“Aren't you even curious about how Tina Vale died?”

“Yes, of course I am. But we all know it must have been some kind of unfortunate accident. We just don't know the details yet.”

“Have you had any dinner?”

“No. Haven't eaten much at all today, actually.”

“Then you will have some of my shrimp salad.” Florence took a large plastic-covered bowl from the refrigerator.

“Florence, you are a marvel.” Jane peeked into the bowl. “Mm, that looks heavenly.”

“A special Trinidad recipe my mother just e-mailed me. Even Master Nicholas liked it. For him I left out the rum.”

“Rum? In a salad?” Jane winked at her. “You'll have to make it just for us sometime.”

“You got it, missus. Now sit and I will have it on the table in a flash.”

Jane obeyed. Suddenly she felt washed out, as if her bones had turned to jelly. Florence placed a plate of shrimp salad in front of her and she began to eat. “This is marvelous.”

“Thank you. Perfect for a hot summer day.” Florence sat down opposite Jane. “So this Tina who died—she is the one who has been giving you so much trouble, yes?”

“That's right.”

“Your Mr. Barre should be pleased at this news.”

Jane looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

Florence shrugged. “Just that maybe now his book will be published after all. Wasn't she the one who didn't like it?”

“Yes,” Jane said thoughtfully. “You're absolutely right. Yes, this may put a whole new light on things.”

 

 

Stanley stopped by a couple of hours later, his bearing grim. Jane took him into her study off the living room and they sat in armchairs in the corner of the room with glasses of iced tea. Winky appeared and with an angry-sounding yowl jumped into Jane's lap, circled endlessly, and finally curled into a fur ball. “You're mad at us for subjecting you to that nasty cat show, aren't you, Wink?” Jane said.

In the next instant, Twinky, the only kitten that Jane had kept of the litter to which Winky had given birth the previous Christmas, jumped onto Stanley's lap. Twinky was an exact duplicate of Winky, but in miniature. She, too, curled into a ball and went to sleep.

With his big rough hand Stanley softly petted the sleeping kitten, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

“So?” Jane said. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “What happened to Tina? How did she die?”

Stanley drew in his breath, cleared his throat. “Jane, you know I don't like to discuss police business with you.”

“Oh, Stanley, please don't start that again. You know you're going to wind up telling me everything, so let's just get it over with.”

He thought about this, then nodded as if to say Jane made good sense. “All right. She killed herself.”

“Killed herself! Tina Vale? I don't believe it.”

“Believe what you like, but it's true.”

“Nope. Never. Tina Vale would never commit suicide. She loved herself too much to do that.”

He gazed at her through narrowed eyes. “Mm. It's true, though. There was a note.”

“Really? What did it say?”

“That she couldn't go on.”

“And how did she ‘kill herself'?”

“Dropped a plugged-in toaster into her bath. Electrocuted.”

“Toasted,” she said, and couldn't suppress a giggle.

“Jane, that's in very bad taste.”

“Yes, you're right, I'm sorry. How awful. I think I saw the toaster in question.”

“Oh?”

“When I was in Tina's suite, her husband came in with one he'd found at a local antique shop.”

“Sounds like the one. This one was definitely old. Strange-looking thing.” He gazed absently down at the sleeping kitten, stroked its slowly rising and falling tummy.

She was watching him. “What?”

He looked up. “Hm?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

Gently she took his chin in her hand and turned his head to face her. “Tell me.”

He laughed. “You know me too well. First of all, if this woman collected toasters, you'd think she would have known enough to keep them away from the water.”

She nodded. “Go on.”

“Second, from everything you've told me about Tina during this Nat Barre situation, she just wasn't the suicide type. She had everything going for her—a new, high-level job at Corsair, a handsome, adoring husband . . .”

“Stop. Not sure about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“When he came in this morning, he kissed her on the forehead as if she were his sister. And as for her adoring him, I don't think so. She told us flat out that she's having an affair with Rafe Parker, Corsair's chairman.
And
that the only man she ever really loved was my Kenneth.”

Stanley looked down uneasily, as if not wanting her to talk about something he knew hurt her so much. Then he looked up again. “There's another reason. Something Ian noticed.”

“Yes?”

“He said there were three keys to the suite. Shelly Adams, the secretary, had one, but she threw it at Tina when she quit her job and stormed out. Ian was standing there when it happened.

“Tina had a key. We found it on her dresser in the bedroom.

“Ian had the third key. Whenever he was in the suite, he kept it in an ashtray on a table near the door. When he left for his toaster-seeking expedition this morning, he forgot to take the key, leaving it in the ashtray. He remembered dropping it there. Now it's gone. Which means that someone who was in the suite between the time Ian left and now, took it.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide. “And used it later to get into the suite, kill Tina, and leave a fake suicide note?”

“Right. Which, by the way, Ian has examined. It's definitely his wife's handwriting. We're going to compare it to other samples, just to be sure.” He looked away uneasily.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “
I
was one of the people in the suite this morning. Are you saying I'm a murderer?”

“No, of course not. I know you better than that. But not everyone does, Jane. And you did have a very good motive.”

It was true. Tina hadn't yet told Corsair's legal department to terminate Nat's contract. Now, as Florence had already pointed out, the novel's publication was virtually assured.

“
But
,” she said quickly, “there were other people in that suite today, and now that I think about it, they all had excellent motives, too.”

Briefly she told him the stories that Shelly Adams, Salomé Sutton, and Jory Mankewitz had told her. “They all hated Tina for what she'd done to them.”

“True,” he admitted. “And of course others in the suite—at least, who are known about—were Ian Stein, who has no motive that we know of yet, and Nathaniel Barre, who had an excellent motive : $900,000, less your commission.”

He checked his watch. “Ooh, I've gotta run. I told Linda and Ashley I'd be there for dinner,” he said, referring to his divorced sister and her thirteen-year-old daughter, who lived at the north end of Shady Hills. “I'll see you soon.”

She saw him to the door, where they kissed. She watched him get into his car and drive up Lilac Way. Closing the door, she was suddenly aware of Florence standing behind her in the foyer.

“What happened, missus? How did Tina Vale die?”

“Not sure. Maybe suicide, maybe not.”

“But
how
did she die?”

“Toaster fell in the bathtub, electrocuted her.”

“How awful.” Florence frowned. “She was making toast in the bathtub?”

Jane had to laugh. “No, Florence, she collected antique toasters.”

“Ah! I saw a Martha Stewart program about that. But if she collected them, wouldn't she have known not to use one near water?”

“You'd think so.”

“What are you saying, missus?”

Jane turned to face Florence. “Stanley thinks it may not have been suicide. There was a note, supposedly in Tina's handwriting, but it could have been faked. She said she couldn't go on. Why not? Everything was going well in her life.”

“Then—”

“Stanley thinks it could have been murder. Because a key went missing. Someone in the suite between early this morning and the time Tina died grabbed that key and used it later to slip back in and kill her.”

“Someone in the suite? But, missus, there must have been a number of people in the suite, no?”

“Yes, there were,” Jane said. “And one of them was me.”

Florence stared at her for a moment; then understanding came into her eyes and her jaw dropped. “Oh, missus!”

Like his sleuth Jane Stuart, Evan Marshall heads his own literary agency. A former book editor and packager, he has contributed articles on writing and publishing to numerous magazines and is the author of
Eye Language
and
The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing.
He lives and works in Pine Brook, New Jersey, where he is at work on the next Jane Stuart and Winky mystery. You can e-mail Evan at: [email protected].

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