A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1 (19 page)

Stewart’s door was unlocked. ‘Are you in?’ I called as I let myself through. ‘Also, did you not get the memo about stalkers? Your security’s worse than mine.’

‘Entertain yerself for a minute, can ye?’ Stewart yelled through the bedroom door. ‘I cannae find my shoe.’

‘That’s what they all say.’ I stole a banana from his kitchen and peeked into a few of the more intriguing boxes still littered around the living room while I ate it.

‘Anything exciting happen today?’ Stewart asked finally, strolling out of his bedroom with shoes on both feet.

‘Apart from the lust of my life finally getting off his arse and propositioning me?’

‘Aye, apart from tha’. If ye want tae brag, get girl friends.’

‘Also Darrow finally turning up and annoying the hell out of me as only he can?’

‘I know that, too. Has nothing happened since?’

‘It was a slow day. Mostly, I cooked.’ I swallowed the last bite of banana. ‘Stewart, you’re not a fan of romance novels, are you?’

He gave me a shifty look. ‘Why would ye ask?’

‘It’s an obvious assumption. You made something of an online pest of yourself when you went after Diana Glass. You slagged off the whole genre in
Vogue
.’

‘Aye,’ he said suspiciously. ‘So?’

‘I can’t help wondering why someone who hates romance novels so very, very much, has a whole stack of them stashed behind his couch.’

‘Tabitha!’ he yelped. ‘A man’s couch is his castle. Keep the hell off me turrets.’

‘I only peeked a bit. One turret.’

‘Yer a menace tae society.’

‘You say the sweetest things.’ I checked the books off on my fingers. ‘
Heart Aflame
, by Diana Glass. Five copies.
Bodyguard’s Choice
, by Diana Glass. Five copies.
Portrait of Desire
, by Diana Glass. Four copies. Multiple copies of the same book, all by the same author. Do you know what that says to me?’

Stewart crossed his arms defensively. ‘Stalker?’

‘Author copies,’ I said with great relish. ‘You’re Diana Glass.’

‘That’s insane.’

‘Actually, I think it’s hilarious. Still doesn’t explain who the woman on the phone was.’ I grabbed at his portfolio and flipped it to the page of the gorgeous brunette woman. ‘Or who this is, for that matter. Unless you’re way better at drag than Ceege, and I don’t think that’s possible.’

Stewart pulled the portfolio away from me, looking mad as hell. Possibly I had overestimated how amusing this situation was. ‘Have ye been listening in on me phone calls?’

‘Not intentionally! My bathroom has mystical eavesdropping superpowers. How many super-sized long blacks will it take before you tell me who the woman in your author photo is?’

My mobile rang, saving Stewart from having to answer. It was a new number. ‘Hello?’

‘Not easy to have a conversation with you when you keep entertaining the police,’ said Darrow in that warm and melty voice of his.

I switched the phone to speaker, and waggled my eyebrows at Stewart to indicate how open and sharing I was. ‘You could have stayed. I got rid of Bishop as fast as I could.’

Darrow gave a throaty laugh. ‘Yeah, I heard how hard you were trying to get rid of him.’

Okay, I was blushing. That was embarrassing. Regretting the speaker phone. Moving on. ‘Anyway…’

‘Did you get my present?’

I frowned. ‘All you left me was some exercise book.’ I wiggled my hand expectantly at Stewart, and he pulled it out of my handbag, thumbing through the pages.

‘Thought a clever lady like you would have figured it out by now,’ drawled Darrow.

Stewart held the book open to a page full of sketches. Line drawings of poles and traps and nets, and the inner workings of electrified ping pong balls, surrounded by scientific notations in a neat, childlike handwriting. ‘What. The. Fuck,’ I said aloud.

I could practically hear Darrow smirking, that beautifully dressed rat bastard. ‘Thought this conversation might go better at a distance. I know what you’re thinking now, and you’re so very wrong.’

‘Your baby cousin Kevin is the Trapper.’

‘See, I
said
you were wrong. Kev came up with the designs, sure. I asked him to.’

Stewart pushed a chair at me, and I sat down in a hurry. ‘
You’re
the Trapper?’

‘Not even that, Darling. Keep up. I told ye: I’m writing a novel.’

‘A lot of that going around,’ I couldn’t help snarking. Stewart rolled his eyes at me.

‘I’m serious,’ Darrow went on. ‘A fabulous detective novel. It’s going to revolutionise the genre. That’s why I went AWOL, I was on a writing retreat.’

‘To write a novel.’ The universe kept making less sense.

‘Sure, Darling. I got little Kev to come up with those traps months ago, to use in my book. He’s a smart cookie, that one. But someone else has been using his traps for real.’

‘Why should I believe you?’ I demanded.

‘Darling, it’s me. Do you really believe I’d swan around building dodgy man-traps and stuffing ping pong balls in your handbag? Don’t I have a bit more class than that? What would I even wear for such an enterprise?’

‘Fine,’ I muttered. ‘But who built the traps, if not you?’

‘My laptop was stolen a few months back—your nice cop friends got it back for me, which I never expected. But whoever took it had access to my manuscript and scans of Kev’s notes from that book you’re holding.’

I pressed my lips together. ‘A laptop thief happened across your sketches and got inspired? Or someone knew about your work in progress and used it deliberately?’

‘The latter’s not unlikely,’ Darrow admitted. ‘Possibly I talked about my manuscript to a few people. Customers of your café, mostly. I’m very proud of it.’

‘Possibly,’ I repeated. ‘Not helpful. Remember any specific people you told?’

‘I talk to a lot of people. I’m friendly.’ There was a long pause. ‘I can think of one person I told about it,’ Darrow said finally. ‘Mocked me thoroughly, the wench. And she’s had access to my house, where the contents of my laptop are backed up on my desktop computer. She didn’t even need to steal the laptop, unless she did that to steer suspicion away from herself.’

‘Xanthippe,’ I said quietly. Zee, whose life I hardly knew anything about these days. Who was working for a band that needed serious publicity. Whom I had left in charge of Claudina, the only witness who might help the police learn the truth about the death of Julian Morris. ‘I’ve got to go.’ I ended the call, but made sure to save the number.

‘Do ye really think—’ said Stewart. He didn’t finish the question, but I knew what he was worried about. He liked Xanthippe. Hell, I liked Xanthippe. I wanted us to get back something of the friendship we’d let slip through our fingers. I still didn’t trust her as far as I could throw that waterlogged Lotus of hers.

‘Let’s find out,’ I said.

Stewart handed me my overstuffed handbag. ‘Saw ye put those Diana Glass novels in yer handbag.’

‘I have some reading to do.’

‘
Really
wish ye wouldnae.’

‘Tell me everything about the woman in the author photo on the way to Claudina’s, and I might change my mind about reading all the juicy bits in your novels. Aloud. To Ceege. And all of our friends.’

‘This would be why I write under a pen name,’ Stewart groaned.

‘
I
t’s not exactly
a long drive,’ I pointed out when we had driven three blocks, with Stewart yet to spill his guts even a little bit.

He gave me a weary look. ‘I’m still working on the part where it’s any of yer business.’

‘Stewart,’ I gasped. ‘How can we have secrets? You know all about my love life.’

‘Not by choice as I recall.’

I waved him off. ‘Not important. I want to know who the “Di” on the phone is, if you’re Diana Glass.’

‘Dinah Leiber,’ he said reluctantly. ‘She was—is one of my best friends. We shared a flat for a while, in Melbourne.’

‘Not a girlfriend?’

Stewart looked embarrassed. ‘I wouldnae have minded, but she had other ideas. She got married a couple of years ago. Went off to be a theatre designer in San Francisco.’

‘And she didn’t mind you plastering her face all over the internet as the author of romance novels?’

‘I didnae put her face on the internet,’ he protested. ‘Well, not exactly. I needed a female author photo for the press release of the first book, year before last, and she let me use one I’d taken of her. She figured it wouldnae affect her, since she was in another country.’

‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘I hear they have bookshops in America.’

‘The internet thing was an accident,’ Stewart confessed. ‘I did the
Vogue
article a couple of months back tae drum up some publicity for book sales, and then … it went viral, and so did the bloody photo of her. Di only found out about it recently, when friends from Melbourne started emailing her tae ask about her secret life as a romance novelist…’

‘You won’t come out of the closet to let her off the hook?’

‘Not if I can help it,’ he said fervently. ‘I have a reputation as a cynical reporter now. Fluffy bodice-rippers dinnae fit with tha’. Simon would think I was a complete wanker—I might lose the
Sandstone City
gig, and I like this job.’

‘But you’re happy for people to think you’re an internet troll,’ I sighed. ‘Honestly,
boys
.’

‘So that’s it,’ Stewart said, spreading his hands wide as I pulled into the little car park of Claudina’s apartment block. ‘All my secrets, laid bare before ye.’

‘I believe you,’ I said, though I didn’t, really. Surely there was still more to be discovered about Stewart McTavish. ‘Come on. Let’s dig up some of Xanthippe’s secrets for a while. It’s definitely her turn.’

X
anthippe answered
the door on the first knock. She glowered at me. ‘Whose bright idea was it to feed Doris Day movies to this woman? I don’t know if getting my hands on that bastard Darrow is actually worth all this—one more amusing misunderstanding with Rock Hudson and I will stab myself in the eye. Both eyes. Then I’m going to start on
other people’s eyes
.’

‘So glad I’m unqualified to be the bodyguard,’ Stewart said in a low voice.

‘We need to talk,’ I said, ignoring their Doris Day hatefest. Savages. ‘About this.’ I flashed her a glimpse inside Kevin Darrow’s exercise book.

Xanthippe rolled her eyes. ‘That took you long enough. Come on in.’

Claudina, her bloodshot eyes fixed to
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
, didn’t even look up from the couch.

‘Bonus points for the insomnia cure,’ said Xanthippe, giving me two very sarcastic thumbs up. ‘I think you melted her brain. We can talk back here.’ She led the way to an empty bedroom.

I assumed it had belonged to Julian. There was furniture here but someone—his mother or sister, perhaps—had cleared out everything remotely personal.

Xanthippe had an overnight bag stashed in one corner, and a pile of face and hair products in a box on the otherwise empty bookshelf. Making herself at home. She had also brought some furnishings that I had last seen in Darrow’s house.

‘So,’ I said. ‘You’re stealing stuff now? How many lamps and doonas does it take to balance out a trashed Lotus?’

‘More than he owns,’ Xanthippe said grimly. ‘Let’s get on with this. What do you think you know?’

I kicked off my powder blue boots and sat on the bed, bouncing experimentally. I picked a nail polish out of Zee’s collection and started painting my big toenail in
Ocean Aqua
. ‘Well, I found Darrow. The closed café finally got his attention. He says he’s writing a novel, and he got young Kev to devise some theoretical traps for him to use.’

Xanthippe snorted. ‘And I’m Calamity Jane. You believed him?’

I capped the bottle and reached for another,
Peppermint Pink
, for the second toe. ‘No reason why I shouldn’t.’

‘Well, I know
I
didn’t chuck a postman in a cage or snare a cat in a net,’ Xanthippe said, crossing her arms.

I raised my eyebrows and said nothing as I started on the third toenail with
Iceberg Cobalt
. Stewart said it for me: ‘No mention of the trap in Crash Velvet’s flat. Does that mean ye did that one?’

Xanthippe glared at us both. ‘Darrow is the one who set the Trapper loose. I found the plans on his computer.’

‘But when did you find them?’ I asked, sorting through the remaining nail polish options. I found a lovely bright scarlet called
Lurve
and set it aside for later. ‘Before Julian Morris built the trap in Crash Velvet’s spare room, or afterwards?’

‘If you know Morris built it, why are you hassling me?’ Xanthippe huffed.

‘Because he doesn’t have any motive for doing it,’ I replied. ‘The most logical reason is if someone paid him. Musicians. Always broke. Who do we know who might want to get Crash Velvet a bit of extra publicity, and capitalise on the “Trapper” story that had already featured on the
Sandstone City
blog?’

‘Their new PR advisor,’ Stewart said helpfully.

I lined up several nail polish bottles on the bedside table—a blue, a green and a brown, all strangely matte with metallic flecks through them. ‘I see you’ve been collecting the new Gee Bee range. It’s crap, apparently. But here’s the funny thing—when Julian’s body was taken into Forensics, they found traces of a Gee Bee nail polish on his fingertips, as if he’d been painting someone’s nails with it.’

‘That’s your evidence?’ Xanthippe said. ‘Substandard nail polish? It’s not overly sound as detective work goes, Tish.’

I just looked at her. ‘This range of polish comes in a four pack. Where’s your
Poison Flesh
, Zee?’

Xanthippe fidgeted impatiently. ‘What are you going to do, dob me in to Leo? Last I heard, not being in possession of a bottle of nail polish was not a hanging offence.’

‘She has a point,’ agreed Stewart.

I pointed a bottle of
Mermaid Foam
at Xanthippe. ‘This isn’t about Bishop, or evidence. The point is, I know you’re involved. Darrow is involved. Apparently I’m involved. So tell me what the hell is going on before
Leo
starts arresting us all.’

Xanthippe flopped on the foot of the bed. ‘You don’t honestly think I’ve been sneaking around putting ping pong balls into handbags?’

‘I don’t know what to think!’ After a moment, I gave in. ‘No. But Darrow thinks you’re the Trapper, and you think he is. If you weren’t both so obsessed with this little cat and mouse game over the Lotus—yes, I know, beautiful car, destroyed, tragedy of epic proportions, put it back in your pants—then you would have pooled your information by now and you would have realised that someone has used
both
of you.’

Xanthippe blew out the breath. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘A timeline of events. A confession about everything you were directly involved with.’ I raised a hand to ward off her protests. ‘I’m not telling Bishop anything right now. As if he’d believe me. But I have to know what you did, and what Darrow did, so we can get together and figure out what
someone else
did.’

‘Fine,’ said Xanthippe. ‘For the record, I don’t think Darrow is the Trapper. I think Morris was the Trapper, and Darrow paid him.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because I paid him too.’

I threw the bottle of nail varnish at her. She ducked, and it hit the wall in a crunch of glossy-green-on-cream. Oops. Good thing this wasn’t my house.

‘Right,’ said Xanthippe, straightening up. ‘Timeline. I found out about my car via text a couple of weeks ago—can you believe Darrow didn’t have the balls to at least call me in person?’

‘Bravery is not one of his superpowers,’ I agreed, managing to stay calm.

‘So I decided to take the job with Crash Velvet—kCeera’s an old friend, and they’d been asking me to sort out their PR for months, but I didn’t fancy coming back here.’

‘Until you needed an excuse to come and whip Darrow’s arse,’ I put in.

‘As if I need an excuse. Yeah, so I got here, what, a week and a half ago? Sunday before last. Started looking for Darrow, and working with the band. I read up on
Sandstone City
, which seemed the local media most likely to play ball.’ She nodded in Stewart’s direction. ‘Saw his stories on the Trapper, and wondered if it was something we could use, but didn’t think much of it. But I needed somewhere to crash that night, and I broke into Darrow’s place. And I found the plans.’

‘You assumed he was the Trapper?’ I said, shaking my head with disbelief.

‘You don’t know half the dodgy stuff he gets up to, Tish. It wasn’t unreasonable.’

‘Not to an ex-girlfriend with a grudge, no.’

‘Anyway,’ Xanthippe grunted. ‘I figured it was poetic justice, using Darrow’s freakishness to help me out in my job. So I set up one of his traps myself.’

I went cold. ‘Just how important is promoting this band to you?’

Xanthippe looked furious. ‘What the hell do you think of me? I’m going to run around killing buskers for fame and profit? Believe me, if I was prepared to
murder
people to promote Crash Velvet, we wouldn’t be relying on some pissy little blog to get the news out. No offence,’ she added, to Stewart.

‘None taken,’ he said, bemused.

‘I asked around some pubs last week. Found out some busker had been boasting about being paid to set stupid traps around the streets of Sandy Bay. Morris was easy enough to find. You’re not the only one who knows people around here, Tabitha. He had a copy of the same plans I did—never admitted who paid him for the first traps, though I dropped enough hints that I already knew. I paid him to do one for me. That was the Monday and Tuesday before he was killed.’

Damn, she is good. ‘So you already knew Morris?’ I asked.

Xanthippe gave me another of those ‘are you high’ looks that she was so very good at. ‘Tish, you went out with him at college. We all knew him.’

‘Huh.’ Maybe I should be keeping some kind of diary.

Now Xanthippe was shifting uncomfortably. ‘Morris was supposed to put a dummy in the net, done up in freaky bondage gear. I got a shop mannequin for him, and the clothes, and even gave him the damn nail polish. Imagine the look on my face the next morning when the band told me that instead of a dummy, it was Morris hanging in the net, with a needle sticking out of him. I don’t know what happened. But if Darrow is responsible, this is serious shit, Tabitha. He can’t get away with this.’

I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. ‘Why did
none
of you tell the police that you had hired Morris to build the trap?’

‘Crash Velvet don’t know,’ Xanthippe said. ‘I mean—they know not to mention my name or my involvement with them to anyone. They’re good like that. But I let Morris into the flat when they were all out—the band don’t know what I did.’

‘And you,’ I said in a hard voice. ‘Why haven’t you told Bishop about your role in all this?’

‘Are you kidding me? I can’t put him in this position, Tish. You know how bad it’s going to look.’

‘It will be worse if it comes out now. Or later—if the case is compromised because of it? You can’t do this to him, Zee.’

‘I’ve already done it.’ Xanthippe’s voice was on edge—this was the most freaked out I had ever seen her. ‘I can’t tell him now. He’ll kill me.’

‘He loves you, he won’t—’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Stewart broke in. ‘Am I missing something here, about Bishop and Xanthippe?’

I had forgotten that he hadn’t been here our whole lives. ‘She’s his sister.’

‘Oh, right.’ It apparently required a bit of mental readjustment to add that detail into the mix. ‘Different last names?’ Stewart asked after a moment.

‘Halves,’ said Xanthippe. ‘Different dads. We’re not that close. But it’s not exactly going to help out his career if I admit I commissioned the Crash Velvet trap.’

‘Or if you’re arrested for murder,’ I pointed out.

‘Yes, thanks for that.’ Xanthippe sighed. ‘The police have decided it was an accidental overdose. Maybe it really was.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, knowing how much she needed to believe that. ‘But if that’s the case—what happened to the mannequin?’

‘We’re missing something,’ said Stewart, the only one left in the room who wasn’t sitting on the bed. ‘Some detail that will make the rest of this make sense.’

‘Just the one?’ Xanthippe said sarcastically. ‘Shall I check my handbag?’

‘Don’t mind him, he reads crime novels,’ I said.

‘Oh, one of those.’ She gave him a pointed look. ‘This is
off
the record, by the way, Mr Bloggy McBlogger.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Stewart. ‘It’s my policy not tae publish anything that will make Bishop want to hurt me.’

‘Amazing how much ground that policy covers,’ I said, wanting to smile despite everything.

‘Ye were right the first time, Tabitha,’ said Stewart. ‘None of this will make sense until we get Xanthippe and Darrow in a room together, and figure out which bits of this the two of them are no’ responsible for.’

I nodded. ‘You grab Claudina and the Doris Day stash. I’ll make some calls. Let’s get this done tonight. My place. I have a café to open tomorrow.’

Gateaux. Panini. Bagels. Gluten-free friands. I wanted my old life back.

I also wanted Stewart to stick around, and Darrow to stop disappearing, and Xanthippe to be my friend again, and Bishop to kiss me like he did in the stairwell that time, only more.

I wanted my dad back, while we were at it, but that wasn’t going to happen. I’d settle for the rest.