Murder on the First Day of Christmas (Chloe Carstairs Mysteries) (8 page)

    
“You know,” she changed the subject abruptly, “ Robin really had no motive to kill Saul. He said it himself, she wasn’t in the will.”

    
I chewed thoughtfully. “But maybe she was sick of his being so cruel to her. He was pretty awful.”

    
“It would have been easier for her to break up with him than to poison him, don’t you think?”

    
“Not if you already have two homicides to your credit. Maybe it’s easier to knock off your boyfriend than to divvy up your CD collection and give him back his key.”

    
“You sound like the idea has some appeal.”

    
“We’re not broken up. We’re seeing other people.”

    
“Ah.”

    
I consoled myself with another chip. “When you think about it, no one had a real reason to kill Saul. Unless it was someone related either to a book he had written or one he was writing. Maybe someone from his past snuck in.”

    
“All the doors and windows were locked,” Mom pointed out. “And everyone there had an invitation. If a crime was even committed, it has to have been an inside job.”

    
“If a crime was even committed,” I seconded. “So when is the snow falling on Birmingham?”

    
She sighed, but I could tell she had perked up a little. “Tomorrow, I guess. God, I hate fake snow.”

    
“But the Santas are nice.”

    
“The Santas are very nice. Thanks for all your help.”

    
“No problem. It keeps me off the streets.”

    
Mom still worried about my unconventional career path. In her mind, three part-time jobs did not add up to one stable profession. I wasn’t a degreed designer like my mother, but I had a good eye, years of experience helping Mom and a love of spending other people’s money. My clients got a little of the Carstairs cachet at a much more affordable price. Throw in my personal training gigs and the Christmas houses, and I was making pretty good money. Even had a little savings and an IRA. Knowing that my lack of steady employment bugged my mother? Even better.

    
“Can I get this out of your way,” our waitress asked, reaching for my plate - finally.

    
Looking longingly at the last chip, I handed the plate to her decisively.

    
Mom smiled. “Remarkable restraint, dear.”

CHAPTER 8

    
Despite Nancy’s best efforts to infuse the event with gaiety, her party got off to a rocky start. True, her décor was totally different from Saul’s, though no less smashing. And, yes, the food was far more exotic, if the duck quesadillas the waiters served were any indication. Still, it was a holiday party, and at our last holiday party together, just a week ago if you could believe it, someone had died.

    
Naturally, Saul’s death was the talk of the evening. Bunny Beaumont skipped her usual fashionably late entrance in order to gather information with the fervor of an embedded journalist broadcasting live from the front. And speaking of fronts, two strips of double-sided tape were all that was keeping hers from being on full display beneath a ruby red halter dress.

    
“Bev’s House of Harlots must be having a sale,” Mom murmured as we watched Bunny try to pump my father for information.

    
Wisely, Dad excused himself to sneak a peek at the buffet that the caterer was laying out on Nancy’s George II serpentine mahogany sideboard. Bunny’s eyes met Mom’s. Mom smiled. Bunny smiled. The temperature in the room dropped fifteen degrees.

    
I was surprised to see Angela perched on the edge of a seat in the keeping room, since her only connection to these people had been Saul. She looked uncomfortable, which I knew had nothing to do with the chair she had chosen - leather and walnut, French 1940’s.

    
Even more than uncomfortable, Angela appeared to be poised for flight, which, of course, made Mom want to put her at ease. That’s kind of Mom’s thing, but when she got waylaid by Nancy and gave me her Mom look, it became my thing.

    
“So, Angela, whatcha doing way over here? You’re missing out on the quesadillas.” Forced. Fake. Awkward. The usual.

    
She stood and smiled faintly, knowing I was on a pity mission prompted by my mother. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m hiding out from that bitch.” She nodded toward Bunny. “And her nasty little husband.”

    
“Yeah, good plan.  Gavin’s harmless, though, just a little socially awkward, and Bunny will back off once she realizes you don’t have any dirt to dish.”

    
“I get paid to gather and disseminate information. I don’t give it away for free.”

    
Hearing an edge in her voice, I gave her a second look and wasn’t thrilled with what I saw. Wearing an unbecoming beige dress that did nothing to complement her fair skin and red hair, there was a new and unattractive hardness about her, a false bravado that made her face look pinched as her small, dark eyes scanned the room searching for someone.

    
“How did your interview with the police go?” I asked.

    
“Same as yours, I guess. They’re clueless.”

    
“No suspects at all?”

    
She shrugged. “They’re looking for leads in all the wrong places.”

    
“Such as?”

    
“Me for one. Like I needed to steal Saul’s research.”

     “You think they suspect you?”

     Another shrug. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”

     “What about Robin?” I asked.

     “What about her?”

    
“How’s she holding up?”

    
Her smile this time held genuine amusement. “Robin isn’t crying on my shoulder, if that’s what you’re asking. She’s scared of me.”

    
“Why?” I was losing patience with her sly tone and sneaky innuendoes.

    
“Let’s just say I’m a pretty good investigator in my own right. Saul’s name sold books, but my research gave them their juice. I know everything he knew and more. A lot of people are probably asking themselves how I plan to use that information.”

    
“And just how is that?”

    
Her face brightened. “With all the information I’ve gathered, a book deal isn’t out of the question. I could tell you something about everybody in this room. Things they would kill to keep secret, or at least pay big bucks to squelch.”

    
I stared at her. “You do know blackmail is a crime.”

    
“Who said anything about blackmail? I’m a journalist. I have integrity, which is something Saul knew nothing about.”

    
“Then why did you work for him for eight years?”

    
Her brashness fell away, and for a moment, I glimpsed genuine sadness, maybe even something else. “Saul was good to me. We were a good team.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “But now, I’m on my own.”

    
Uh-oh. True confession time. When I’d told Cassie that Angela and I weren’t friends in high school that hadn’t exactly been the whole story.

    
Yes, Angela had been riddled with teenage angst, which was totally annoying to those of us who never wanted life to get any deeper than a movie plot. What I hadn’t realized at the time, though, was that beneath all that black eyeliner and unwashed hair beat the heart of a vulnerable girl seething with unbridled passions you usually find only in erotica.

    
So when my friends and I accidentally found her journal in eleventh grade (hidden in her gym locker under two books, her tennis shoes and her Sony Walkman), we were shocked to learn that some of those passions had found a very complicated, intense outlet - her forty-year-old journalism teacher, Mr. Kramer. Reading the juicier sections out loud, it was clear that most of their relationship had only taken place in her mind. The rest had occurred in the darkroom after sixth period journalism class.

    
All hell had broken loose after we found out. We hadn’t planned on telling anyone, but Ms. Watkins, the girls’ volleyball coach, had overheard Sonya snort-laughing the words “throbbing maleness” and confiscated what she thought was pornographic reading material. Turns out she was right.

    
Kramer lost his teaching license and went to jail. Angela got a twice-a-week standing appointment with a therapist, not to mention an even bigger chip on her shoulder, and I got the wrath of my mother. Even worse, Angela’s mom died a year later - not good.

    
Angela had been sent to live with her dad’s brother and finished out her senior year at another school. She and my mother had maintained the uneasy closeness of an unstoppable force sending college care packages to an immovable object.

    
They had never confirmed or denied it, but I got the feeling my parents had paid for Angela’s journalism education. She shared our Thanksgiving dinners, had a picture on our mantle, and had hugged my mother with genuine affection eight years before when Mom announced she had gotten Angela an interview for a research assistant position with one of Mom’s most famous clients - Saul Taylor.

    
So when I heard Angela talking about Saul with such naked emotion, naturally I suspected the same kind of thing she had written about in that journal - infatuation with an older man. Respect for a mentor that had turned physical. Throbbing maleness.

    I wanted to touch her arm, but something stopped me from offering that small gesture of comfort. I was the last person from whom she would want sympathy.

    
“When’s Oscar supposed to get here?” Angela’s eyes again scanned the room.

    
I shrugged and looked around. “He makes a grand entrance every year dressed like Santa Claus.”

    
“And passes out little surprises for those who’ve been naughty or nice? Oh, if he only knew.”

    
Again, I was distinctly chilled by her insinuating tone. “Angela…“

    
She cut me off. “There’s Jack Lassiter. See ya.”

    
Thirty minutes later, I was desperately trying to get Dana to give me the scoop on the bridesmaid dress I’d be wearing in her wedding, but she wouldn’t divulge even a ruffle.

    
“Just a hint. Just the color?”

    
“You’ll like it. I chose them with you in mind,” Dana said as Mom joined us at the buffet. “Easy there on the mashed potatoes, though. If your stomach’s going to be on display in front of three hundred people, you’ll want it to be flat.”

    
Dana laughed. I didn’t.

    
“Where’s Dan tonight?” Mom asked, innocently.

    
Sore subject.

    
“He wouldn’t come unless he could wear the same outfit he was going to wear to his ‘gig’ tonight.” Dana made little quote marks with her fingers as if the disdain in her voice wasn’t enough. “Combat boots, black leather pants, no shirt. I know, so I said wear whatever you want. I mean, put on a shirt obviously, but come on. It’s a party, and we haven’t been to a party together in so long, at least one that didn’t get busted up by the cops.”

    
Why did you have to ask about Dan, I telegraphed to my mother, as if she wasn’t already asking herself the same question. Catch Dana in the middle of one of her rants about Dan, and she goes from polished and pulled together to girl uninterrupted with alarming ease.

    
“But then he gets all huffy and says that if I’m going to be that way about it, maybe I should just go alone. And I’m like ‘what way?’ and he’s all like, ‘Oh so I never take you to any parties, I never take you anywhere nice.’ And I’m like, as a matter of fact…”

    
“Oooh, prawns!” I tried to move off down the buffet, but Mom blocked my escape.

    
Dana didn’t seem to notice we had lost interest. In fact, she seemed fully prepared to recount the fight in real time for Mom’s benefit, lest there be any doubt as to how unreasonable her fiancé was and what a saint she was to put up with him. And remember, this girl is a lawyer. Arguing her point is what she does for a living. God help us.

    
“I mean we’re not even married, and it’s like the romance is already dead. Well, not dead, but on life support. And he’s like, you’re such a princess, you’re such a yuppie, which is his idea of, like, the worst insult ever.”

    
It was then that I had a feeling of déjà vu, a sense of talking at a party when something strange happened. Oddly, a silence had rippled its way across the laughter and chatter of what had been a lively party. I thought people were reacting to Dana’s tirade that had grown steadily louder.