Plaster and Poison (12 page)

“That’s true.” I took a breath, a deep one, to pull myself together. I wasn’t doing myself any favors by acting like a jealous teenager. “She might have mentioned it when she first came to town, while she and Melissa were looking at houses together. Before Kate bought the B&B and realized what a waste of oxygen Melissa is.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “Don’t hold back, Avery.”
“I never do,” I said.

When we knocked on Kate’s kitchen door around eight A.M. the next morning, both McGillicutty women were up and about, if not exactly chipper. Shannon looked like death warmed over, huddled at the breakfast table wrapped in a blue robe, her hair a straggly mess and her face naked. She was ghostly pale, with dark circles under her swollen eyes and a sort of little-girl-lost look to her that was painful to see.
Kate wasn’t in much better shape. I had called her the night before to make sure she was OK, and she had assured me that she was, but it looked like she had spent a rough night. She was pale like her daughter, her freckles standing out across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, and with the same dark circles under her eyes. If she had cried for Gerard, after the first time yesterday morning, she showed no signs of it, though. Her hazel eyes were neither red nor swollen, and although she was pale, she was composed. She was standing at the stove when we walked in, cooking what smelled like French toast.
“Any news?” Derek asked.
Kate turned to him. “Not much. Brandon has gone through the carriage house from top to bottom looking for evidence, and he says they’ll probably release it sometime today or tomorrow. It’s sparkling clean. Not so much as a speck of sawdust anywhere.”
“What did they come up with? Anything helpful?”
Derek pulled out a chair for me and took one himself, keeping his eyes on Kate.
“They’re not telling me,” Kate said, her voice brittle. “Apparently we’re suspects.”
Shannon closed her eyes, as if in pain. Or disgust.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, “of course you’re not suspects. Wayne can’t possibly think you had anything to do with this.”
“Wayne’s not in charge anymore. He’s a suspect, too.” She flipped a piece of toast.
“You’re kidding!”
Kate shook her head. “He was here the night Gerard was put in the carriage house.”
“Put? ”
She nodded. “Apparently he died somewhere else and was dumped here.”
“Ugh.” Who’d do something like that to us? Or to Kate and Shannon?
“What does that have to do with Wayne?” Derek asked.
“Nothing really,” Kate answered, “except that he got here late, when I was already asleep. He could have put the body in the carriage house before coming inside.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“No idea. But when my ex-boyfriend shows up three weeks before my wedding and ends up dead, the police have to look at my fiancé. That’s just the way it is.”
“Even when your fiancé is the chief of police?”
Kate shrugged and put her spatula down on the stove to rub her eyes.
“So who’s in charge, if not Wayne?” I asked. “Is Brandon handling the investigation on his own?”
At twenty-two, was he ready for such a big responsibility? I mean, if there was ever a case we didn’t want mishandled due to inexperience, it was this one.
Kate shook her head. “Reece Tolliver from the state police in Augusta was called in to help.”
“So what’s Wayne doing now?” Derek asked.
Kate grimaced. “Directing traffic.”
“What a mess,” I said.
Kate nodded, picking up the spatula once more and turning back to the French toast.
“How are you holding up?” Derek asked Shannon. “You hanging in there?”
“More or less. I couldn’t sleep at all last night.” Her voice was low, rusty. “I just can’t imagine who would have done this, you know? He wasn’t doing anything to anyone!”
“I think he must have been,” Derek said gently, “for this to happen. Are you sure he didn’t say anything to you? Mention anything he was doing or someone he had contact with? Other than you?”
She shook her head, fisting her hands in her hair as if to tear it out by the roots. “I’ve thought and thought about it. All night long. All day yesterday. I’ve gone over every word he ever said to me, twice, three times, and I don’t know anything. He came up here to see me. And that’s all I know!” Her voice rose.
“Sssh.” Kate abandoned the stove to put an arm around her daughter’s shaking shoulders. “Don’t worry about it, honey. They’ll find who did this. They’ll catch him and put him away. I promise.”
Derek motioned to the French toast. “This looks ready. Can you eat, Shannon?”
“I don’t think so,” Shannon said, her voice exhausted.
“Try a bite, OK?” He put a plate in front of her. “Get some food inside you.”
Shannon lifted a fork and picked at her food. “I’m not hungry.”
“I am,” Derek said. “Here, Avery.” He handed me my plate before sitting down next to Shannon with his own plate mounded with glistening slices of French toast.
My stomach rumbled. “Looks great.”
“One of these days I’ll teach you to cook, Avery,” Kate promised. “When things aren’t so crazy.”
“One of these days, I might take you up on that. Until then, I’ll just enjoy food someone else made.” I smiled and put a piece of French toast in my mouth and chewed. Mmm, yummy!
Under the peer pressure, Shannon managed to choke down a few bites. Derek, of course, polished off two servings in less time than it took the rest of us to have one.
“So what are you and your parents planning to do today, Avery?” Kate wanted to know after a minute or two of keeping an eye on her daughter between bites of her own breakfast.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, chasing the last few pieces of toast through the syrup on my plate. “Are they still sleeping?” I hadn’t heard any sounds from upstairs.
Kate glanced at the display on the stove. “Almost eight forty-five. Three hours earlier in California. That makes it almost six o’clock. They’ll wake up in the next hour or so, most likely.”
“Well, Mom mentioned something about trying to get in touch with her cousin Mary Elizabeth. You know, Ray and Randy Stenham’s mother.”
Kate nodded. “I keep forgetting that you guys are related. You haven’t gone to visit her, have you? Mary Elizabeth?”
I shook my head. “I’ve endeavored to avoid that pleasure.”
Derek snorted. “I can understand that,” Kate nodded.
“You know her?” I looked from one to the other of them.
Kate shook her head. “Oh, no. Know of her. Know her to look at. But I’ve never had occasion to talk to her. Don’t think I’d care to.”
Derek added, “I know her. Or rather, she knows Dad. Old Waterfield families and all that.”
“Really? Well, Mom knew Mary Elizabeth growing up, so she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. She told me they never had much in common, but Mom can’t very well come back to Waterfield and not see her family. And Mary Elizabeth is all that’s left. Plus the twins.”
Kate nodded. “Are you planning to go with her?”
I shrugged. “Depends on what she wants. If she asks, I don’t think I can refuse.”
“It’d seem petty,” Kate admitted. “So does your aunt know that your mom’s in town?”
“If she doesn’t yet, she will soon. We ran into Melissa last night, at the Tavern, and Mom told her to tell Mary Elizabeth that Mom would be in touch. So Melissa will tell Ray, and Ray will tell his mom. And Mary Elizabeth will expect a call.”
Like magic, Derek’s cell phone rang and he picked it up, heading for the door.
“How did your mom like Melissa?” Kate wanted to know with a faint smile.
“She didn’t. I’ve talked about Melissa, so of course Mom knew who she was as soon as she set eyes on her. Then Melissa flirted with Derek right in front of us, and she was a little too friendly with Noel, too. And then she totally dissed me. So it’s safe to say that Mom didn’t care for her. By the way, did you ever happen to talk to her about Gerard? Melissa, I mean? Not about the . . . um . . .” I glanced at Shannon, sitting there like a shadow, and amended my statement. “Not about what happened yesterday, but before? That he’s Shannon’s father, where you met him, what happened between you, anything like that?”
Kate drew her brows together. “Why would I tell Melissa that I became pregnant at eighteen and that my boyfriend didn’t want anything to do with me or his daughter? No offense, Shannon, but he hasn’t been a regular part of your life until just a few weeks ago.”
“You never liked him,” Shannon said, too tired even to work up any steam about it.
Kate rolled her eyes. “Of course I liked him. I was crazy about him. Until I had you and realized he wasn’t ready to be a daddy.”
When Shannon didn’t respond, Kate turned back to me. “Why do you ask, Avery?”
“What? . . . Oh, because she knew his name. Melissa. Knew Gerard’s name. She swore she didn’t know him, but she knew his name. So I thought maybe you’d mentioned him sometime. When you first moved to Waterfield, or something. While she was showing you properties, maybe. Before you realized what a witch she is.”
Kate thought about it. “I may have,” she said eventually. “It’s not impossible. I don’t remember doing it, but it’s not inconceivable that I could have, in passing. It would have been six years ago, if so. That’s a long time to remember a throwaway remark.”
I nodded. It was. Especially for someone as self-absorbed as Melissa. It was also interesting. Fraught with possibilities, one might even say. If Kate had mentioned Gerard, then the problem was solved. But what if she hadn’t? Then Melissa must have known about Gerard from somewhere else. And if she did, maybe she’d had something going with him on the side. I wouldn’t put it past her. Like I’d said last night, she seemed to hook up with all the good-looking men in Waterfield sooner or later. First Derek, then Ray; she hadn’t been above flirting with Peter Cortino when he first came to town, and I’d seen her sweet-talk Tony “the Tiger” Micelli. And if Ray had realized it—and Ray, like his twin Randy, wasn’t above making threats and maybe even making good on them—was it possible that the Stenhams might have had a hand in Gerard’s death? I had suspected them of having had a hand in Aunt Inga’s, so it didn’t seem like too much of a stretch.
Or was I grasping at straws and trying to find a way to implicate Melissa and the Stenham twins in anything I could? I’d been wrong about Aunt Inga—they hadn’t had anything to do with her death—so maybe I was just as wrong now.
Before I had the chance to articulate any of these thoughts, the door opened and Derek walked back in. Hard on his heels came Josh, whose eyes went to Shannon immediately upon entering, and whose mouth turned down at the corners when he saw how she looked. She managed a smile, but it wasn’t up to her usual brilliant standard.
Derek looked from one to the other of them for a moment before he focused on Kate. “Dad’s gonna stop by in a few minutes, on his way to the office. He’ll give her something to help her sleep. She needs rest.”
Shannon looked mutinous, but Josh smiled approvingly, and Kate nodded.
“We need to go.” Derek turned to me and reached out a hand.
“Sure.” I stood and took it. “Have my mom give me a call when she gets up, OK, Kate?”
Kate promised she would, and Derek and I headed back out into the cold.

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