To Brie or Not to Brie (17 page)

“Social life, pfft.” Prudence joined Iris at the register and flicked her hand at
her like she was an intrusive bug.

Iris giggled, something I couldn’t recall her doing before. “Prudence is mad because
I suggested she date Stratton’s acting buddy, you know, the high school history teacher.
She thinks he’s too old and bald. I told her bald is sexy. Stratton’s bald, you know,”
she said, stating the obvious. “Right, Pru?”

Prudence sucked in air. Her face started to turn beet red. She reminded me of a kid
trying to hold her breath for too long. If she released the air, she might fly around
the room backward like a spent balloon.

“Prudence wants me to fully vet the teacher,” Iris went on ignoring her friend’s mini-tantrum.
“But, really, is anyone ever fully vetted?”

My thoughts caromed to Hugo. Jacky hadn’t vetted him. None of us had. What did any
of us know about him? He was nearly as mysterious as Jordan, and yet Jordan turned
out to be not only a delicious man but also a kind, upstanding citizen. Had Hugo really
called his mother and talked to her long enough to establish an alibi? I didn’t know
any man who talked to his mother for hours on end. Had Urso seen a telephone record
yet? Although I realized I had telephone calls on the brain, I couldn’t help going
one step further with my theory. What if Hugo, upon learning of Jacky’s secret identity,
had pretended to be a woman and had called Giacomo Capriotti? I recalled thinking
that his voice was resonant, as if he were trained to address large crowds. Was he
also trained to disguise his voice? But what did he have to gain by luring Giacomo
to Providence?

“I’ve paid,” Prudence announced yanking me back to business. “Let’s go.”

Tyanne handed Iris the gold Fromagerie Bessette bag filled with their purchases.

Iris peeked inside. “What did you choose, Pru? Ah, Pace Perfect double-cream. I love
that cheese. Did you get the cocktail napkins I recommended?”

“Yes.”

“And the rosemary crackers?”

Prudence huffed, and I smiled to myself, tickled that the town’s diva had found a
bossy match in Iris.

As they exited, Rebecca entered the store through the rear door, her arms loaded with
herbs from the garden out back.

At the same time, Tyanne rounded the register and joined me. “Sugar, Rebecca said
you needed my help in the office.”

“I did, did I?” I appraised my sweet assistant.

She raised her chin and strutted toward the kitchen. “Yes, you did.”

“What help do I need?” I followed, and Tyanne trailed me.

“I was talking with Delilah this morning,” Rebecca said over her shoulder. “She came
in for some Grafton Clothbound Cave Aged Cheddar to take to the diner.”

“Don’t tell me. She’s making more grilled cheese sandwiches?”

“You got it.”

The Cheddar was a firm cheese with a whisper of almond flavors, and it melted beautifully.
If I were making a grilled cheese with it, I would add bold flavors like jalapeños
and black pepper to the sandwich.

Rebecca tossed the herbs into the sink, turned on a sprayer to rinse them, and tumbled
them with her fingers. “Delilah thinks you should investigate Vinnie Capriotti.”

“I know. I just ran into her. She was conducting a rehearsal at my grandmother’s house.”

“Then she must have told you that you need some dirt on Vinnie to keep him quiet about
Jordan.”

Tyanne’s gaze zipped from Rebecca to me. “Why would you need him to keep quiet about
Jordan?”

Rebecca slapped her hand across her mouth. Water splattered her face. “Oops.”

My neck and chest flushed so hot that I thought I might hoot like a boiling teapot.
That Delilah. Why hadn’t she mentioned to me that she had blabbed to Rebecca about
Jordan being in a WITSEC program? I didn’t need to be blindsided. To how many others
had she revealed Jordan’s secret?

“I’m waiting.” Tyanne folded her arms and tapped a foot. If I had learned anything
about her in the past two years, it was that she didn’t like being in the dark about
anything. Not her husband’s affair. Not her kids’ grades or schoolyard scrapes. Nothing.

“Anabelle,” Rebecca blurted.

“What about her?” Tyanne remained resolute.

“Um…” Rebecca glanced upward and then sideways as she scrambled to cover her blunder.
“Anabelle saw a tall person running from the scene of the crime.”

“So I heard,” Tyanne said.

“Urso thinks it might have been Jordan.”

I had to give Rebecca credit; she was quick. I joined her charade. “But it wasn’t
Jordan, of course, because he was with me. I told Delilah that I was worried that
Vinnie would convince Urso it was Jordan…”

“…so Delilah suggested we get the dirt on Vinnie,” Rebecca said, continuing the lie.
“Something to convince him to keep quiet.”

“Blackmail?” Tyanne said.

The word left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I nodded.

“Delilah thought we could find something online,” Rebecca added.

“I’ll help.” Like an eager student, Tyanne waved her hand overhead. “I’d love to learn
how to do an in-depth Internet search, you know, maybe using Deep Web or Dig It. I’ve
been doing all the blog posts and newsletters. I think I’m ready.” She grabbed my
wrist and dragged me from the kitchen to the office. “By the way, I saw Vinnie on
the street, loitering outside the pottery shop. I didn’t like the look of him.”

Rags meowed a greeting from his spot on the office chair. Rocket perked up in his
tiger-striped pillow and gave a single “Arf.”

Tyanne snagged a treat for each of them from the lower
drawer of the desk, then nudged Rags out of the chair and plunked herself down. “Ready,”
she said, hands poised over the keyboard.

Rags did a figure eight around my ankles, his curiosity piqued by Tyanne’s fervent
behavior.

“Relax, pal,” I said. “Tyanne is going to help me.”

For the next three minutes, I instructed Tyanne on how I would go about researching
Vinnie Capriotti, birth name Vincent. She picked up the steps quickly. I gave her
a pad and pen and asked her to write down any web links she thought might be important.
I didn’t really know what I would do with the information once I had it, but getting
Tyanne focused on something other than Jordan’s past was important at this point in
time.

“Another thing,” Tyanne said. “Did I hear right? Jacky is the heir to her husband’s
fortune?”

“It’s unconfirmed.”

“Might Vinnie Capriotti want to harm her so he inherits her portion? He’s an heir,
too, right?”

“The jury is out.” When would Urso have a conversation with Giacomo Capriotti’s estate
attorney? Would he confide in me when he had?

“I remember,” Tyanne continued, “when my grandfather died, how my uncles harangued
my father. They told him he had better toe the line,
or else
.”

“
Or else
what?”

“
Or else
he might meet his Maker a tad early.” Tyanne blew out a long hiss. “Money makes people
do the vilest things.”

“It does,” I said, her words reigniting my concern. Jacky and Cecily could be in danger.

“Don’t you worry your pretty head.” Tyanne pointed at the computer. “I’ll find out
all I can from this box. Go on, now. Back to work.” She shooed me away.

I returned to the kitchen, rested my hand on the granite
counter, and tapped an imaginary rivet into the floor with my toe.

Rebecca looked up from the sink. “What?” she said, lips parted.

“You know what.”

“Actually I don’t. Delilah didn’t tell me anything. Granted…” She let the word dangle.

I waited for her limp explanation.

“…having watched all the detective shows that I do”—she plopped the herbs into a white-matte-glazed
colander and shook out the water—“I’m guessing I know what’s up, but Delilah didn’t
say a word to me. Not a word.”

Forcing myself to keep cool, I said, “What have you guessed?”

“Jordan is running from the law. He’s got warrants out for his arrest because he stole
a lot of money, and that’s how he could afford to buy the farm.”

All the tension melted from my shoulders. “You’re not even warm.”

“He’s a foreign millionaire, hiding from the press?” Her voice lilted upward.

“No,” I said, wanting to slug myself. If I hadn’t overreacted earlier, I could have
kept a cap on everything. Rebecca would have been none the wiser, and Tyanne wouldn’t
have become curious.
Rats.

“Is he in the WITSEC program? You know, ready to testify at some big trial?”

“Where do you get these ideas?” I returned to the cheese counter. She followed and,
in between customers, she pelted me with more questions. In the course of an hour,
I didn’t give her one clue, and I never outright lied. I was very pleased with myself.

When The Cheese Shop emptied of customers, Rebecca said, “Charlotte, you’re driving
me nuts. You’re as stoic as a sphinx.”

Remaining mum, I refaced a block of Beemster XO cheese—XO for extra old. It was one
of my favorites and tasted like butterscotch.

“Have you seen the Beemster guy lately?” Rebecca said, trying to draw me out. “You
haven’t gone up in his hot air balloon yet, have you? So far, he’s only made a flyby
over Providence, right?”

Beemster USA was a co-op of several hundred dairy farmers. The guy who managed the
concern was a charmer and loved to pilot his hot air balloon around the country.

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Rebecca went on. “That’s why you’re not talking.”

I wrapped the cheese in the saran-like cheese guard—a necessity since cheeses kept
together in a cheese case might commingle, if not kept airtight, and their molds might
jump to another cheese—and I replaced it in the cheese case.

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “But I won’t blab anything else. Promise.”

I spun to face her. “You almost revealed something to Tyanne, and it would have been
a rumor. I don’t want you circulating rumors. Got me?”

“Yes, ma’am. Forgive me?”

I grinned. I could never stay angry with her.

An hour later, when the shop had filled and cleared again of customers, Rebecca sidled
up to me at the counter and said, “What’s taking Tyanne so long?”

I had forgotten that I had given my other assistant a task. I tiptoed to the office
and found Tyanne leaning back in the chair, Rags tucked against her chest. Tears streaked
Tyanne’s cheeks.

I hurried to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I”—she hiccuped—“I got sidetracked. Nothing was coming up for Vincent Capriotti that
seemed noteworthy, so I made a detour and…” She indicated the computer screen.

On the main page was a picture of her ex-husband and a
lusty woman—the woman with whom he had the affair—at a celebration in New Orleans.
After Tyanne divorced him, he and his paramour returned to his hometown. So much for
being around to see his kids on a daily or weekly basis.

“They’re getting married.” Tyanne sobbed. “Look at the honker of a ring.”

The woman wore a piece of jewelry large enough to choke a frog. “There’s no accounting
for taste,” I whispered.

“You’re telling me.” Tyanne sniffed back more tears. “Big fake breasts go right along
with big fake gems.
Fake is as fake does
, my mother used to say.”

“Charlotte.” Rebecca appeared in the doorway.

“Not now,” I said.

“Charlotte, it’s important.” Rebecca beckoned me to her.

Tyanne fluttered her fingertips. “Don’t worry about me, sugar. I’m a steel magnolia.
I will get through this, won’t I, fella?” she said to Rags. The cat purred his support
and nuzzled her with his head.

I met Rebecca at the door. “What’s so important?”

“Vinnie’s out there.”

“Vincent Capriotti?” Tyanne swiveled in the chair. “He’s in The Cheese Shop?”

“No,” Rebecca said. “He parked on the street. He’s walking west.”

“Ooh, Charlotte, have I got an idea.” Tyanne picked up the phone. “Didn’t Sylvie say
that Vinnie was going to be the first man to have a facial at Under Wraps?”

“Yes. What are you doing?”

She held up a finger then said into the receiver, “Hey, Sylvie, sugar, it’s me, Tyanne.
Why, yes, I did want to talk to you about the wedding plans. Input is always welcome.”

I frowned. What kind of input did Sylvie want to offer?

Tyanne winked at me, a signal not to worry. “But, first, I’m calling to get the scoop
from you. Did that man with the bad skin come into your shop?” She listened. “Vinnie,
that’s right. He did? Oh, he’s there right now?” She nodded
to Rebecca and me and turned her attention back to Sylvie. “Indeed, you are. Very
clever. Why, just the other day you were saying how you had him wrapped around your
pinky. Yes, indeed-y, I could learn a thing or two from you.” Tyanne eyed me and mouthed:
Not.
“Yes, let’s meet at Café au Lait tomorrow. What time?” She nodded. “Perfect. ’Bye
now.
Ciao.
” She hung up and swiveled in her chair. “Vinnie Capriotti has gone in for a facial.
He’ll be there for an hour and a half.”

“What was that about you having coffee with Sylvie?” I asked.

Tyanne screwed up her mouth. “Sylvie wants to talk privately about the food you’ve
got on the wedding menu.”

“Of all the gall.”

“Relax, sugar. I’ll cancel the coffee. I was just talking fluff. Nothing’s going to
change on the menu. Now, focus on the task at hand. You must investigate Vinnie’s
car.”

“What?” I gasped.

Rebecca clapped while bouncing like a jack-in-the-box. “She’s right. You need to investigate.
All you have to do is peek in the car.”

“And look for what?”

“Anything, sugar.” Tyanne rose from the chair and set Rags back on the seat. She snuggled
his neck, thanked him for the hugs, and prodded Rebecca and me back to the shop. “Anything
that will get Urso to switch his suspicions away from Jacky.”

“The truth might be a good idea,” I muttered.

“Vinnie is a gambler,” Rebecca said. “Maybe you’ll find a large IOU.”

“Or a ledger revealing what debts he owes,” Tyanne offered.