Murder on the First Day of Christmas (Chloe Carstairs Mysteries) (24 page)

    
“I just wish we had come up with something tangible, just one bit of concrete evidence.” Mom scanned the cheeses in the deli bin.

    
A gooey mozzarella? Something unexpected, like crumbled gorgonzola? Who was I kidding? Fresh goat cheese wins it every time.

    
“The cops aren’t having any more luck.” Dad held the oven door open for Mom to peek in. “That’s the way these things work, sometimes. You think you’re getting nowhere then everything falls into place.”

    
The crust was slightly brown around the edges.  “Looks good to me.” Mom handed him the oven mitts.

    
“I don’t see why McGowan is so focused on Angela.” I ladled sauce onto the middle of the crust. “Even if Angela took the discs, Robin and Tony Trianos make much better suspects.”

    
Mom shot me a look, knowing exactly why I had brought up that name.

    
“I don’t think he sees two different people committing the murder and the theft,” Dad said, “but it’s a possibility. Angela might have taken the discs as a way to protect her work and launch her own career.”

    
“What about Nancy’s theory that Oscar might have stolen them?” Mom asked.

    
“Interesting but unlikely.” Dad crumbled the goat cheese as my mother spread the veggies onto the pizza.

    
“Why unlikely?” Mom asked. “That’s the one theory that’s working. The discs were stolen after the murder, either by Oscar or Robin. Angela, maybe, but it’s a stretch. The police were swarming all over that place.”

    
“Why would Oscar risk it? That’s tantamount to tampering with evidence.” Dad poured wine into a glass, then held up the bottle, offering to pour us some.

    
I accepted. Mom didn’t.

    
“Evidence that might’ve been damaging to his wife,” I argued. “Or better still, might’ve helped him nail Tony Trianos.” On went the cheese, and into the oven went the pizza.

    
We sat down to dinner in the dining room, one of my favorites. Dominated by a beautiful 17th century Spanish refectory table with walnut lyre legs, vintage Lalique sconces cast a soft ambient light over the room and its Italian triptych landscapes on one wall and elaborate Venetian mirror on another.

    
Mom waited till Dad had taken his first bite of pizza, the crust crunching nicely, the goat cheese puddling around fragrant veggies. Then, casually, she called my bluff. “So tomorrow Chloe’s going to talk to Gavin Beaumont in the morning. Then in the afternoon, we’re questioning Tony Trianos at his restaurant downtown.”

    
I almost fell out of my chair.

    
Dad sprinkled more crushed red pepper flakes on his pizza. “No.”

    
“No?” Mom acted as if she wasn’t sure she had heard him right.

    
“Not a good idea,” Dad clarified, like that explained everything.

    
I gazed into the art glass bowl in the table’s center and wondered how this would play out. Dad had bought her that bowl in London. Perhaps, I should move it to a safe harbor.

    
“Did you just say, ‘no?’ Like I was one of the girls asking for the keys to your car?”

    
Hey, a good offense.

    
“If you were one of the girls asking for the keys to my car, I would’ve said, ‘Hell no.’” Dad said pleasantly.

    
“I’ve always loved the wallpaper in this room,” I decided a change of subject might be in order.

    
“Your father and I put it up together along with the wainscoting - a team effort.  How could I have known that underneath his enlightened exterior beat the heart of a no-wielding caveman? I had no idea we had the kind of relationship where he…”

    
“Amanda,” Dad interrupted. “We both know you’re making an issue about the ‘no’ to distract me from the real issue - your hanging out with gangsters or our town’s version of a gangster, which is way out of your league.” He caught her look. “Mine too, for that matter.”

    
“Don’t lawyer me, Alex. You know I hate to be lawyered. I have a solid argument about why we need to see Tony Trianos tomorrow, and if you will return from whatever 1950’s time warp you’ve slipped into, I’ll be glad to share it with you.”

    
He put down his pizza and gave her his full attention. “Fine. Let’s hear it.”

    
Mom laid out the argument about Tony being a suspect and our needing to question everyone involved with the case. She mentioned that we needed to know what Saul was working on when he died and how it involved Trianos. She argued that Tony might tell us things he would never share with the cops.

    
She got nowhere.

    
“You have forgotten that someone tried to kill Chloe,” Dad pointed out.

    
My smile could only be described as beatific.

    
“I certainly haven’t forgotten, which is why this is more important than ever. Someone struck out at our family, and Angela is in danger as well. These things make me more determined, not less.”

    
Hate to admit it, but Mom made a convincing case. The snap in her green eyes, the set of her mouth, the cocky little way she tilted her chin. I was ready to follow her into the breach.

    
“Then let’s consider the dangers associated with Tony Trianos. People sometimes disappear when they talk to him.”

    
“Questions, Alex, that’s all I’m proposing. In broad daylight. I’ll be careful.”

    
“Can you at least wait until I can go with you?” Dad met her halfway.

    
“Theoretically I could, but Trianos will clam up around a lawyer. Two chicks from the suburbs aren’t as threatening.”

    
“Clam up. Chicks. Since when do you refer to yourself as a chick?”

    
“I’m getting into character.”

    
Dad looked at me. I kept my face neutral, resigned to my fate.

    
“Ok, fine, but I can’t say that I like it, any more than you would if I were putting myself or our daughter in danger.”

    
Mom rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Alex, it’s not like we don’t have another daughter. You know I always keep a spare on hand.”

    
“Hello. Sitting right here, you two,” I interjected.

    
Against his will, Dad smiled. “Yeah, well, just don’t get any bullet holes in my cars or my family - in that order.”

    
Mom kissed him and wiped pizza sauce off his chin. In that order.

    
I just sat there. What does one wear to question the mob?

CHAPTER 29

    
Good daughter that I am, I volunteered to question Gavin Beaumont on my own Tuesday morning, so that Mom would be spared another encounter with Bunny. Since there was no way I wanted to see the good doctor in his professional capacity, I opted for a house call. Bunny already knew what we were up to, so there was no need to be coy about it.

    
The Beaumonts’ old ranch-style house in the heart of Mountain Brook had been popped on top to create an enormous Georgian mansion that dwarfed its modest lot. I didn’t think they had kids living at home, although I recalled a daughter from Bunny’s first marriage who had graduated college and was off traveling. Honey, I thought her name was.

    
I rang twice, breathing in the pungent fragrance of the door’s huge eucalyptus and bay laurel wreath, before a slim black woman answered, her irritation evident. A little older than I, tall and graceful with the carriage of someone who studied ballet, her makeup was spare and skillfully applied, emphasizing large dark eyes whose direct gaze was hostile. She wore a chef’s jacket, baggy pants and black clogs. Her dark hair was pulled straight back and clipped at her neck.

    
“Hi, I’m Chloe Carstairs. Are the Beaumonts here?” My tone was apologetic in the face of her annoyance.

    
“I thought they were, but I also thought they would get the door. Shows how much I know.”

    
“Lucy? Was that the bell? I was out back and couldn’t get to it in time.” Bunny rushed into the foyer, pulling off gardening gloves in her haste, having adopted the same apologetic tone I had. Lucy, it seemed, knew how to get respect.

    
“I’m not the maid, Ms. Beaumont,” Lucy said firmly and, I assumed, not for the first time.

    
“Of course not, dear. I was just…”

    
“I’m a professional personal chef. I don’t do doors.”

    
“Yes, I know. It’s just that I was…”

    
“Mmm-hmm.” Lucy was already moving toward the kitchen.

    
“It won’t happen again, I promise.”

    
“Mmm-hmm.”

    
I expected Bunny to be a bit miffed that I had witnessed this little household drama.

    
She waved it off. “The attitude is horrendous, but so worth it come dinnertime,” she said, then addressed my presence. “So, dear, what can I do for you before 10:00 a.m. Selling Girl Scout cookies?”

    
I smiled and let my eyes drift over her outfit. Speaking of things we were a little old for.

    
Tight dark denim jeans, cuffed at the bottom, and a red gingham shirt, tied at the waist so that a tiny swath of belly was visible when she moved. Her makeup was vivid, and her hair was in, I kid you not, pigtails. The effect was cute, but a little cartoony, like the stereotype of a slutty farm girl you might see in a men’s magazine.  Gardening? Squatting in those jeans would have staunched blood flow as effectively as a tourniquet, but then the look Bunny was going for was more va-va-voom than verisimilitude.

    
A man wouldn’t have questioned the look. A woman seeing a man pitching hay wearing nothing but cowboy boots and a neckerchief would’ve had only one thought - chiggers.

    
If Bunny noticed my amusement, she didn’t let on. I hoped I hadn’t interrupted her and Dr. Beaumont in the middle of some weird role playing game. If he came out dressed like a pirate, I was out of there.

    
I told her I wanted to speak to her husband for a minute.

    
“Whatever for?” She smiled maliciously. “Oh, let me guess. This and that. Various and a sundry, right? Honestly, you girls and your snooping. Did it ever occur to you that folks might find all of this just a tad bit offensive?”

    
“Not even once. So is Dr. Beaumont busy?”

    
She feigned nonchalance. “He’s around back, washing the car. Right this way.”

    
“What kind of gardening were you doing?” I asked as we moved through the foyer and into their soaring great room with its two-story windows flanking a marble faced fireplace.  I barely had time to take in her tree, a fifteen-foot white number covered in jewel tone glass ornaments.

    
“Just piddling. Where’s Amanda this morning?” She opened the door to the sun porch and motioned me through with an after-you wave of one hand.

    
“She ran out to Miss Dupree’s to take care of a few last minute things. Monica’s having a private showing tonight.”

    
“Really. Y’all going?”

    
“I’m not. I don’t know about my parents. They were invited, but Dad’s helping out with some big case so I think they begged off.”

    
“Two murders in two weeks in that neck of the woods, I wouldn’t risk it either.”

    
I started to point out that it was a good thing then that she wasn’t on the guest list, but decided to take in their nice set up out back instead.

    
An outdoor kitchen took up most of the back patio, spilling into the pool area. The yard was tiered, a quaint little seating vignette on the top, a more expansive dining area closer to the house. Plantings were structured, but a lush water feature kept things from getting too fussy. To the right, a stamped concrete drive snaked around the corner of the house and ended in a private parking pad where Gavin was giving his Lexus LS a serious rubdown.

    
“Just follow the drive down when you’re finished, okay, sweetie?” Bunny suggested as she held the door open for me, but this time her gesture said, “Hit the road, kid.” Such hostility.

    
As I approached Gavin Beaumont, who was looking like Santa’s most eager, but least able elf, I had to wonder. What was he doing sudsing up his car, when his wife was inside dolled up like the farmer’s daughter? Very strange.

    
“Chloe Carstairs, what brings you out this morning?” Gavin caught sight of me as he began going after his hub caps with a fat sponge soaked in soapy water.