The Marsh Madness (16 page)

I could feel fatigue descending, like a big boot from the sky. Seconds after we disconnected, I was sound asleep. So much for chasing Shelby Church across the wasteland of the Internet.

*   *   *

AFTER BREAKFAST, I took a thermos of coffee and some pastries to the latest officer stationed in the driveway.

“I need to go to the library to do some research,” I said after handing them over. “If that’s not illegal or anything, you could follow me or call for backup. Can you find out if that will be okay? I’m not crazy about having some kind of ‘takedown,’ so let’s do this by the book.”

It is possible that I’d been watching too many police procedurals.

He stared at the pastries and then at me. I said, “Take your time and have your breakfast. I have a few things to do in the meantime.”

Apparently it was all right. The officer waved me on as I exited Van Alst House to see Lance.

Maybe things were looking up. Or maybe the police were there on the lookout for Kev. I didn’t think that would be the best way to catch him, but, hey, I’m not a professional.

L
ANCE WAS LEANING over the desk, concentrating on a query from one of his omnipresent posse, when I strolled into the reference department. Two more elderly ladies waited impatiently behind the lucky one who had his attention. This was a special crowd for sure, all bewitched by my handsome, flirtatious and very smart friend.

I waited, leaning against a bay of dictionaries, wondering if I would have been better off sending a text. But I was there now, and I loved visiting the library with its combination of historic building and modern technology. Mind you, I’d heard plenty of beefs from Lance about the limits of antiquated and inadequate wiring with contemporary equipment. I was on the side of the old stuff, of course, but then I didn’t have to track down information for a demanding clientele five days a week.

I grinned as I watched him. After all, I was also part of that demanding horde. And leave it to Lance; he had turned up something for me with that “borrowed” photo from the Country Club and Spa. Now, here I was with another little
angle on that. Therefore, not a good idea to add to Lance’s stress.

I made myself comfortable at one of the old pine reading tables and thumbed through some issues of
The New Yorker
and
Architectural Digest
. I kept an eye out for the line to clear.

The minute the crowd thinned, I crossed the room.

Lance grinned. “No genealogy for you, my proud beauty.”

“‘My proud beauty?’ Have you been watching old movies again, Lance?”

“So much better than you with your crime shows.” He twirled an imaginary mustache and grinned evilly.

“Actors,” I said, meaningfully.

“What about them? Have you been watching
Access Hollywood
again? You used to have a weakness for actors.”

“Ancient history.
Although
I was thinking of stage actors,” I hissed, making the most of “stage” and “actors” without mentioning any by name.

“Very dramatic. You’ve missed your calling, Jordan.”

“Right now my calling is to clear Vera’s name and Uncle Kev’s. Mine too. So here’s the thing. I’ve been reading Ngaio Marsh again.”

“Love her! All that over-the-top—”

“So you know many of her works deal with theater or plays in some way. I’ve read seven so far.”

“So how’s that connected?”

“Everything about our lunch at Summerlea was staged to lure us. No one made a false step. Everyone was perfectly placed, perfectly in character, perfectly calculated. The false Chadwick, the lovely ‘Miss Troy,’ the formidable Thomas.”

“Remind me who Thomas is?”

“The butler we saw at Summerlea.”

“Oh right.”

“Maybe he wasn’t so perfect. I’m not all that familiar with butlers, but he seemed a bit off at the time. He wasn’t anything like the ones I’m used to in British fiction and television.”

“Different how?”

“He looked kind of rough and burly. His hair was weird, and he had green stains on his hands. I thought he might be picking up shifts in the garden at Summerlea.”

“Maybe,” Lance said. “You’d think the Kauffmans would have a landscape maintenance service. Of course, I don’t move in those circles either.”

I nodded. “I think you’re right, but he definitely wasn’t Chadwick’s butler, because as it turns out, there wasn’t a butler at Summerlea. We’ll have to keep thinking about what his appearance means and digging around, no pun intended, until we find out.”

“Maybe they wanted you to feel you were in a
Downton Abbey
knockoff?”

“What do you mean?”

“Thomas is a character in that series. Starts as a footman and never makes it to valet, let alone butler. He’s always a wannabe, and one with evil intentions.”

I blinked. I hadn’t thought that much about the butler and his intentions. I’d been concentrating on “Chadwick” or whoever he was and “Miss Troy,” who we now knew was Shelby Church. I hadn’t thought about any deeper meaning in the character of Thomas.

Lance said cheerfully, “I believe we agreed all this would be over lunch, Jordan.”

“My pleasure.”

I could feel the disappointment level rise as we waltzed out of the reference department.

*   *   *

AS WE PULLED away from the parking lot, in the Saab, I couldn’t help but notice a dark sedan out of the corner of my eye. I squinted. “Don’t look now,” I said, “but is that by any chance Tyler Dekker lurking? Lance! What part of ‘don’t look’ isn’t clear?”

“Why is he being such a jerk?” Lance muttered.

“You tell me. He broke up with me.”

Lance’s head snapped. “What?”

“Dumped me when the cops started to investigate us. Didn’t I mention it?”

“What a total—”

“Staying with me would be a career impediment.”

“And now he’s willing to spy on you for the cops? How low can a guy go?”

I shrugged. I’d done my best not to be miserable over Tyler, and I didn’t want to wallow. I had lots of stuff to do, and I needed to be coolheaded and tough. “I’m over it.”

“Huh. That was speedy. But it’s good. You are too special, Jordan, to put up with these losers. You need to learn how to avoid bad boyfriends.”

“Wow. And I’d already agreed to pay for lunch,” I said.

“Admit that it’s true.”

“You can hardly call him a bad boyfriend, Lance. Tyler was almost perfect until . . . this thing. Don’t roll your eyes.”

“Exceptional? I don’t think so. Here’s a small-town cop with aspirations to be a small-town detective, and the minute you interfere with his plans, there you are.”

“Where?”

“Gone.”

“I’m right here.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Jordan. You know what I mean. Dumped. Discarded. Abandoned.”

“He broke up with me. He didn’t leave me in the middle of the desert without any water.”

“You don’t need to pretend to be brave with me,” Lance said. “You’ve cried on my shoulder before, you know.”

A person could be forgiven for having no idea at all what was being said in our conversation. Lance may be adorable, but he has this weird little way of making oblique yet dramatic allusions.

I slammed on the brakes to avoid going through one of the few red lights in Harrison Falls.

“It’s not the first time he’s let you down, Jordan.”

“I hope you aren’t talking about last fall when I needed him and my life might have depended on him and he vanished with no explanation.”

Lance opened his mouth.

I continued, “Because
you
were also totally unavailable when I needed you and when, may I repeat, my life might have depended on you.”

Lance sputtered, “You know why that was. Tiff and I explained everything. We had an excellent reason. And it was months ago.”

“Well, Tyler had an excellent reason too. And—”

“Maybe I’m not talking about him.”

“What?”

“You know who I mean.”

I glared at him. We had a pact never to speak of my former boyfriend. “We’re not going to be talking about Lucas.”

All right, from time to time, I might whine about the fact that Lucas maxed out my credit cards, plundered my bank account and left me with my self-respect in shreds and no chance of continuing grad school until I rebuilt my financial side, not to mention my credit rating. He was why I came slinking back to Harrison Falls and my uncles and ended up working for Vera. I do not need to talk about him or think about him.

“You were heartbroken then,” Lance said, apparently not remembering our pact.

“And who said I’m heartbroken now?”

He shrugged. “Good if you’re not, but I think you are. And these two have lots in common.”

“You can’t possibly compare them. Tyler is decent and honorable and—”

“And yet he broke up with you when you needed him. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is he wasn’t a lying, manipulative snake who cleaned me out, and by the way,
I
broke up with Lucas. There’s one really big difference. What’s more—”

“I’m saying there’s a pattern.”

Apparently, I used my outside voice. “It’s not a pattern.”

Lance shook his head. “You can do better.”

“But—” I stopped myself. Was Lance right? Was I attracted to men who wanted to take advantage of me? Could I do better?

I thought hard. There was no question that Lucas had been the worst thing that had ever happened to me, except for losing my mother. But Tyler hadn’t been. He’d been—if you overlooked the absence last fall—available, supportive. Funny. Kind. A good dog owner. He’d pursued me in spite of my family, um, connections. They couldn’t have done his ambitions any good. I might have been furious with him, but I knew he wasn’t a “bad boyfriend.” Of course, now he wasn’t any kind of boyfriend.

I said, “The topic is closed to discussion. We have other fish to fry.”

“Good. I’m starving. And we’re here.”

*   *   *

MR. GRIMSBY’S IS in an old brick house that’s been nicely done up. Modern décor, lots of charcoal walls and new muted gold accents. Their lunch specials had been written up by someone with really good handwriting on a chalkboard in a gold-accented frame. I sincerely hoped that this fresh and chic new spot survived in our town.

We were in an intimate corner by the gas fireplace. Our table, like all the others and the bar, was made of weathered barn board, with many layers of high-gloss varnish. No tablecloths. Our spot was very cozy—a good thing, as spring didn’t seem to be coming. Our server seemed new and nervous, despite her stylish topknot and sleek black tunic. She handed us menus and stepped back to wait. I think she may have been overcome by Lance.

We settled in, and I managed to smile at her.

“Now, can we talk about the photo?”

Lance leaned toward me and said, “Maybe we should look at the menu and order, and talk while we wait for our food.”

I gave a noncommittal nod. I was steamed at my good friend and his attempt to play Dr. Phil with me.

The server—our own one-person studio audience—lurched toward us and slid a basket of sliced bread and a small dish with three flavored butters between us. She recommended that we each choose three small plates for the meal.

It was hard to make that choice. Lance settled on the seared scallops with parsnip puree and a sesame drizzle, and I went with the mini steak frites. What are bistros for if not steak frites, however mini? He picked the cheese plate to start; I went for hot and spicy cauliflower soup.

While we were waiting, Lance produced the print of the photo. Under several of the faces he had placed small white labels. “Shelby Church” was one of them. No surprise there. He also had a thin ribbon of tape on the surface connecting some faces. Shelby had quite a few connections. I figured people in a place like the Country Club and Spa and people who attended charity cotillions would move in the same circles. Not circles that anyone I knew moved in.

I felt my stomach fluttering with excitement.

“What did you find out about Shelby from your friend at breakfast?”

“She’s a very pretty girl from a well-to-do but not fabulously wealthy family.”

“Not like the Kauffmans,” I said, sampling the warm sliced baguette with flavored butter.

She got a solid business degree and apparently was doing well, but in the last couple of years she decided to become an actress.”

“What did your friend think of that?”

He shook his head. “She disapproved. She thought that Shelby was not a good actor and would never make it in that world.”

I got that. Shelby had let her anxiety show more than once
during our lunch. “So what is this not good actor—a pretty girl from a well-off family—doing, getting involved in a scam that resulted in a murder?”

“I don’t know,” Lance said with one of his graceful shrugs. “And my friend had no clue. Maybe Shelby’s some kind of psychopath.”

I thought back to our luncheon and recalled the beautiful, slender and appealing woman who had greeted us. Could she have been a psychopath? “I don’t think so. She was a bit nervous, uncomfortable.

“Apparently, Jordan, that’s the talent of the psychopath. They make you believe them.”

I leaned back and pursed my lips. Shelby could have been a psychopath, but I wasn’t buying it. I could certainly believe it of the faux Chadwick with his lizard eyes or even the hulking Thomas with his unmoving face and green-tinged hands. I knew that psychopaths could look like normal people, especially charming and attractive or powerful people. Many people believe you find lots of them heading corporations or in the senior ranks. But Lisa had been genuinely nervous during our meeting and lunch. I would have bet Uncle Mick’s shop on it. Yes, you can fake the slight shake in the hands, but she’d gone pale more than once, and there had been the little tic under her eye. Now I wondered if she was nervous about being part of the scam.

“I don’t buy it, Lance. I met her. And Lance, if you are thinking about mentioning that my last bad boyfriend—because we’re not including Tyler in this—was a psychopath, I agree. He was for sure, and I did a ton of reading about psychopaths after that.”

“As your personal librarian, I am aware of that.”

The napkins were cloth, so I couldn’t doodle on them. I whipped out a notebook, ripped out a piece of paper and wrote: