A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1 (12 page)

S
o yeah
, there is a possibility that Xanthippe is not entirely perfect and cool at all times. I mean, she’s human. Has to be. I’ve seen her in mismatched underwear in the school change rooms. I not only witnessed her failed experiment at mixing vodka with Bailey’s and half a kilo of blueberries, but I lost a favourite pair of jeans to the hideous aftermath. I was there when she cried for twenty minutes about some boy who shall remain nameless, then pulled herself together and glared at me and said ‘We never speak of this again.’

Still, she’s such a stylish robot from the future these days that any reminder she is a real person is gratefully received.

I shouldn’t have been so delighted that when she caught me trying to break into Darrow’s house, she was wearing nothing but a Spider-Man t-shirt, grey knickers and a hair towel. But I was. Gleeful.

Xanthippe placed a cup of tea in front of me.

‘Yes, all right, I was trying to break in,’ I said crossly. There was no point in lying about it. She didn’t have any more right to be here than I did.

Unless … she and Darrow hadn’t hooked up again, had they? I lifted the cup to my lips, and tried to think of a tactful way of asking if Xanthippe was boning her ex.

‘I’ve moved in, by the way,’ she said, and I almost snarfed the tea.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Nice place, this. Darrow has taste—for an unreliable son of a bitch who deserves to die horribly.’ She gestured around at the sleek kitchen. The outside of the cottage might be all heritagey and historical, but he had spared no expense on modernising the interior. I suspected that the gleaming stainless steel kitchen had never even had a cup of tea made in it before.

‘So, why?’ I asked, keeping it simple.

Xanthippe gave me one of those ‘you are so very stupid’ expressions that she specialised in, back in school. ‘I was looking for clues. Obviously. And then I got comfy. I needed somewhere to crash while I was around. If anyone owes me crash space, it’s Darrow. Well, no. What he owes me is money, and serious grovelling. But I’ll take what I can get.’

‘How much money?’ I couldn’t resist asking.

Her face closed over. ‘None of your business. Why have you shut the café?’

‘None of your business.’

Xanthippe laughed. ‘I suppose I deserved that.’

‘So … no clues about where Darrow might be?’

‘No,’ she said. I figured she was probably waiting for me to ask about Crash Velvet, and what the hell she had been doing the night before, with the knife and the drama, and…

‘I’d better be going,’ I said, with a genuine smile. I so love to mess with her expectations.

‘Of course. Party shopping.’ I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘Oscars day,’ she added.

Damn. I’d forgotten. Ceege would never let me live it down if I didn’t provide him with an Oscars watching soirée. No wonder the sneaky bugger had made me waffles that morning—keeping me sweet. ‘You know me,’ I said lightly. ‘You can come, if you like.’

‘Not really my scene.’

Fine, be like that. I’d been trying to figure out whether we were still friends or not, and I guess that was my answer. ‘I thought you
liked
dressing up.’

‘Are you going to ask me, or what?’ she said impatiently. ‘About the party last night.’

Heh. For once in my life, I had outcooled Xanthippe Carides. Winnah and champion. ‘Were you at the party last night? There were so many people…’

She smirked a bit. ‘Okay, then. Leaving by the door or the window?’

‘It’s a nice window, shame to waste it.’

‘Uh-huh.’ She took my teacup, and rinsed it in the sink. ‘I like your new sidekick. Figured out all his secrets yet?’

‘Who says he has any secrets from me?’

Xanthippe looked amused. ‘I bet you haven’t even googled him. You’re so twentieth century, Tish.’ There was the old teenage nickname again, a reminder of how long we’d known each other.

‘I have email,’ I said, a little wounded. ‘I have
broadband
.’

‘Yes, how are Ceege and his gay shamans going?’

‘They’re metrosexual, actually.’ I was tired of this conversation. I went back to Darrow’s shiny white sitting room, and slid one leg over the window sill. ‘If you find Darrow, once you’ve finished breaking his ribs or making him beg for forgiveness, can you tell him I’d like a word about the café?’

‘I’ll try to remember,’ she said.

I bruised my tailbone climbing out of the damn window, and as I walked away I spent at least five minutes thinking of nothing but how much I hated Darrow and Xanthippe and the stupid pretty house.

Before I got to my car, though, I flipped open my mobile phone and called the café. Stewart picked up on the first ring. ‘Café La Femme, it’s no’ me fault it’s closed…’

‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Do you have a tuxedo?’

He sounded a little alarmed. ‘Right this minute?’

‘No, for tonight. It’s an
emergency
.’

‘Tabitha, most people don’t have tuxedo emergencies. Not getting married, are ye?’

‘I need you at our place tonight. Dress
pretty
.’ I heard a sound in the background. ‘Stewart, do you have a woman there?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am using your café as a love shack. It’s proved remarkably successful.’

‘Sponge down the furniture afterwards. Also, bring tequila.’

‘Tonight?’

‘By seven. Or I cut off your coffee supply.’

‘Cruel woman.’

‘You love it.’

C
eege rolled
home from lectures that afternoon to find the house transformed in a mass of streamers and balloons, with the scent of
hors d’oeuvres
billowing out of my oven. ‘You remembered,’ he said with delight.

I tried not to look guilty about the near miss. ‘Of course. Idiot.’ I sat at his computer in a blue ballgown, my hair skewered high in defiance of the laws of both gravity and hairspray. I was also wearing a long strand of fake pearls, and shiny diamante stilettos.

‘I’ll get dressed,’ Ceege said, grabbing a handful of caviar blinis from the buffet table. ‘You stay off the internet. I don’t want to hear you’ve already caught up on Oscar spoilers from the live broadcast.’

The downside of celebrating international events of glamour and glory is that they happen at the wrong time of day for us—the Oscars screen live in our afternoon, but we wait until the evening to party because some of us have real jobs.

‘I’m doing something else, promise.’ Actually, I was busy checking my sources on Stewart McTavish’s secret internet life.

I’d come across the Diana Glass story the first time I googled him. There was even a Wikipedia article devoted to Stewart’s original article—‘Why Romance Novels are Bad for the Soul’ in
Vogue
, no less, three pages of snark which served mainly to tear strips off the works of a certain Melbourne romance writer. Some fangirl had scanned and posted the original article, which I had to admit was as funny as hell. I had also read acres of forum comments about the unfairness of the article, mainly from pissed off romance writers, both published and unpublished. Wikipedia linked to a follow up story about an electronic slapfight between Stewart and Diana Glass on Amazon.

In between stuffing mushrooms, blowing up balloons and making myself look fabulous, I had followed up the last few links this afternoon. Twentieth century girl? I’m new Millennium all the way, baby.

It sounded like the Romance Writers Guild had all but declared war on our McTavish, decrying him wildly in as many pixels as they could muster. Still, the deeper I got into the forums, the more comments I found that suggested that Stewart and Diana had known each other while he was living in Melbourne.

It didn’t entirely fit together. There was a mystery here, and apparently that was my thing these days.

Finally, in an obscure little lit gossip blog that never quoted anyone’s names, I found the final piece of the puzzle. A blurry snapshot suggested that Diana Glass and Stewart McTavish had once—before a certain
Vogue
article—been a serious item.

I could see why Bishop had jumped to the conclusion that Stewart was an outrageously bad ex-boyfriend. But in light of the last few days, I was thinking in an entirely different direction.

And what I was thinking was: publicity stunt.

‘Are those stuffed mushrooms?’ Ceege whooped from the kitchen.

‘Hands off! They’re not even grilled yet.’

It was nearly time for the Red Carpet special, and that meant our guests would be arriving any moment. Also, it was time to grill the mushrooms, assuming Ceege hadn’t eaten them all raw. Before I finished up on the computer, I clicked on the
Sandstone City
bookmark.

random_scotsman
’s latest blog entry was at the top of the page—and I made a little
meep
of surprise.

Julian Morris filled the screen.

Hardly surprising I hadn’t recognised him dead, as he’d done some growing up since I saw him last. He smouldered lopsidedly out of the picture, one arm looped around the neck of a woman I recognised as Claudina the flatmate. His dark, curly hair tumbled around his shoulders.

Hell, if I’d known he was going to turn out like that, I might not have dumped him so quickly back at college.

Ew, Tabitha. Try to restrain yourself from perving on dead people.

I
S
THIS THE FACE OF A DRUG ADDICT?
screamed the article header.

‘
B
ishop’s going
to kill me,’ I moaned.

What the hell was Stewart thinking? The police were going to be furious about this. I scrolled down to the bottom of the article, and found a group of gorgeous red-haired women, holding armfuls of Clean Morris posters and flyers, and looking pleased with themselves.

Never mind Bishop killing me. I was going to kill Stewart. Not only had he gathered this gang of harpies together to push their agenda, he’d done it in my bloody café. Love shack, my satin-sheathed arse.

‘Zip assistance, please!’ Ceege demanded from the kitchen. I came out to find him smashing ice for margaritas, dressed in a devastatingly accurate copy of an ill-fitting pink Ralph Lauren ballgown that Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the Oscars a million years ago. He’d matched it with a scary straight blonde wig, and gel tears studded down his cheeks.

‘That’s hideous,’ I said. ‘Well done.’

He looked proud, and smashed more ice. ‘I know it’s a period piece.’

‘That’s what makes it awesome. Frocking it old skool.’ I lifted two cocktail glasses out of the freezer. ‘Make mine pink.’

‘Don’t I always?’

The doorbell rang, and I trip-trapped down the hallway to answer it.

Stewart stood on my doorstep with a bottle of tequila. I stared at him. There’s something about black tie on a halfway decent looking man that … wow. More to the point, it was raining outside and his hair was forming damp ringlets around his neck. I was a little dizzy for a moment. When I felt safe to speak, I said, ‘I was mostly kidding about the tuxedo.’

‘I guessed,’ he said. ‘But I had this lying around…’

‘Uh-huh.’ I wasn’t going to ask. I really wasn’t. But it didn’t look like a secondhand treasure, or a squeaky-clean rental. The boy had depths. Then I remembered some of his depths, and hit him quite hard on the shoulder. ‘I’m not talking to you.’

‘Ow!’

‘If you intend to keep quiet about your nefarious activities in my café, you might want to
not blog about them
.’

‘Oh, that,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I did work on the mural today. As well.’

‘And interviewed a gang of redheads, and photographed them in my café. Bishop’s going to blame me for this. He already suspects me of messing with the investigation.’

‘I didnae think of that,’ Stewart said, looking alarmed. ‘There was more room there than in our office, and the light was perfect for the picture … sorry, Tabitha.’

I scowled at him. ‘I want you to know, I’m only letting you into this party at all because you look hot.’

‘Okay,’ he said, somewhere between baffled and afraid. ‘Good to know.’

I snatched the bottle from under his arm, and headed back in. ‘Tequila’s here, Ceege!’

‘Excellent!’ he yelled from the kitchen. ‘Almost killed this bottle.’

‘The insulin thing isn’t news to Bishop, by the way,’ Stewart said in a low voice. ‘Claudina told the police Morris was diabetic when she and Ange first identified the body. They have all the information we do—more, probably.’

‘Mm,’ I said. ‘You know, the police only told the papers that Julian Morris died of a suspected overdose. They didn’t say what it was an overdose
of
. They didn’t officially call him a junkie, either, whatever his precious flatmate screeches about.’ Gary had called him that, but not exactly on the record, and he wasn’t as involved in the case as Bishop was.’