Brush with Death Read online

  “For how long?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “She’s planning on staying through Christmas,” he said.

  “What?” I had barely managed four days with the woman, and that was before my friend had died and foreclosure notices started popping up in my mailbox. Two weeks was more than I was prepared to face right now.

  “Let’s talk about it when I get there tomorrow,” he said. “My next class starts in five minutes, and I’ve got to run. Give Gwen a hug for me, and tell her I’ll help her figure out what to do for the show when I get back.”

  “But …” I said.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow, sweetheart. Take care of yourself. Love you.”

  “Love you too.” I hung up and arranged the root vegetables on a cutting board. My kitchen was cozy and comforting, with Biscuit curled up in her favorite warm spot and a snow-frosted tableau out every mullioned window, but it wasn’t enough to dispel the thoughts that haunted my mind. Catherine’s impending arrival was the least of the many worries that plagued me. I looked at the scarred pine farm table where Fernand had shared so many meals and late-night glasses of wine with us over the last year with a deep sense of loss. I would miss his sharp wit and sense of humor. I’d even miss the discussions of art that lasted until so late I finally gave up and climbed the stairs, knowing John would eventually make it up after me. Although I knew all about his art, I knew little about his personal life, I realized. Until Gwen told me, I didn’t know he was gay, and although I knew his family hailed from the area, I’d never heard him mention them. What a shock it would be when they heard the news, I thought. I chopped the potatoes and onions with a heavy heart, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. Not all the tears were from the onions.

  Fernand would be missed—but his death opened up other questions. Questions I didn’t like to think about, to be honest. Such as, what would my niece do now that he was gone? Would Zelda Chu be willing to take Fernand’s place as her mentor—and would Gwen even consider it?

  And if Gwen did decide to stay, would there still be an inn for her to live at?

  I put the rest of the ingredients into the pot, wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands, and composed myself before heading into the parlor to check on Gwen and Adam.

  Although I didn’t yet have a Christmas tree, the inn’s biggest room was festive and cozy, with a fire roaring in the fireplace, pine boughs on the mantel, and a bowl of my Christmas potpourri scenting the room with cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. Gwen and Adam were sitting on the couch together, talking in low voices.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said quietly, “but I hope you’ll stay for dinner, Adam. I’m making green chile stew.”

  Adam turned and smiled at me with warm, intelligent eyes. It was easy to see what Gwen saw in him; not only was he handsome, but he was witty, kind, and generous. I hoped my sister would look past what she considered his “blue-collar” profession and see how much joy he brought her daughter—he’d done more to calm Gwen in a half hour than I’d managed the entire afternoon.

  “I’d love to stay,” he said, sounding more like an Ivy League student than a local lobsterman. Which made sense, since he’d gotten his degree from Princeton before taking up lobstering. (The degree currently resided somewhere in the deep waters just off Cranberry Island, where he’d pitched it after he got his lobstering license.) “As long as this young woman promises to eat,” he continued, giving Gwen a hopeful look.

  “There’ll be cornbread,” I offered.

  Gwen gave a shuddery sigh. “I’ll try. You haven’t heard from the police?”

  I shook my head. “I just got off the phone with John, though. He’ll be back tomorrow, and he’ll look into things for us.”

  She lifted her chin. “They’re going to say it’s suicide, and they’re going to be wrong.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” I said. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  Gwen let out another long sigh and I retreated to the kitchen, glad I could leave her with Adam, who was better comfort than I could be right now. Biscuit meowed plaintively at me from in front of her empty food bowl. I refilled it with dry kibble, which did nothing to stop the meowing—evidently my plump ginger tabby had been hoping for Fancy Feast, not dry nuggets—then retrieved the foreclosure notice from the drawer I had tucked it into. Just looking at it brought a fresh jolt of near-panic. I took a deep breath and forced myself to think.

  There was nothing I could do about Fernand, but I had to do something about this foreclosure notice. If I couldn’t reach the attorney who had managed the closing, I could still contact the new mortgage company again. They claimed they’d paid off the existing mortgage; if that was true, they must have a record of the wire transfer.

  After being transferred six times, I finally ended up talking with someone who could help me.

  “Do you have a record of the wire transfer?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, and I felt a surge of relief.

  “So it was wired to the mortgage company.” If I could show them the proof of the wire transfer, they would have to retract the foreclosure threat.

  “Actually, no,” he said. “It was wired to an attorney in Bar Harbor.”

  My stomach clenched. “How long ago?”

  “Looks like that was back in September,” she said.

  “Can you e-mail me a copy?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Is there anything else I can do to help you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, gripping the phone. “Is there anything I can do if my attorney skipped town with the money?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that,” she said.

  I didn’t think so.

  EIGHT

  AFTER SLIPPING THE CORN muffins into the oven, I noticed my answering machine was blinking, and I realized I hadn’t called Charlene. I didn’t need to listen to the messages to know who they were from; instead, I picked up the phone and dialed the store. My best friend picked up on the first ring.

  “Charlene. It’s Nat.”

  “I called you three times already. Don’t you check your messages?”

  “It’s been a busy afternoon. I’m sure you heard about Fernand,” I said, feeling tears well in my eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier; it’s been an awful, awful day.”

  “I heard about Fernand,” my friend said, her voice soft with compassion. “I’m so sorry you had to find him.”

  Not for the first time, I wondered how news traveled so fast—and how Charlene always seemed to know it.

  “It was a real shock,” I said, glad to have someone to talk to. “We went over there to look at some of Gwen’s paintings, and I found him on the floor of his bedroom.”

  “Suicide, I hear?”

  “His wrists were slit, so that’s what it looks like. There was no note, though, at least not that I could see.”

  “Poor Fernand,” Charlene said. “What a shock—I never would have guessed he’d kill himself.” She was quiet for a moment, and I could hear the buzz of voices in the background: doubtless the islanders exchanging theories on what had happened at Fernand’s. “Do you think he was upset over that Torrone woman?” she asked in a low voice.

  My heart ached in my chest. “To be honest, I have no idea what he was thinking, and neither did Gwen—she doesn’t believe he killed himself, and I can see her point. He seemed fine last night.” The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. “Did you see anything happen after I left the party?”

  “You mean, with Fernand and Torrone?”

  “Or Fernand and anyone,” I said. “Suicides are usually depressed, aren’t they? Not thinking about the future.”

  “That’s my understanding,” she said.

  “But he was talking about gaining weight when I saw him. Not something you’d need to worry about if you were planning on ending things in a couple of hours.”

  “Maybe it was his goodbye party,” Charlene suggested. “A way to see everyone before he left.”


  “Why throw it in someone else’s honor, then?”

  “I don’t know, Nat.” She sighed. “I’m sure John’ll be able to give us the skinny,” she said. “And you’ve got other things to worry about, anyway—like keeping your inn.”

  The inn. My stomach dropped like an elevator in free-fall at the reminder. “That’s another thing. The mortgage company wired the money. The attorney didn’t forward it to the old company.”

  “What? He must have made a mistake!”

  “I don’t think it was a mistake, Charlene. I think he may have taken all my money and skipped town.”

  “No.” Charlene breathed. Hearing my always-unruffled friend’s response made my predicament feel somehow more acute. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well, I do,” Charlene said, and the confidence in her voice made my spirits lift a little bit. “We know where the attorney’s office is. We’re going over there tomorrow,” she said. “And we’ll sit in the lobby until the receptionist gets in touch with him.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to make myself breathe. “Okay.” It was a start, anyway.

  “Have you talked with John?”

  I swallowed. “About Fernand, yes.”

  “And the mortgage?”

  “No,” I confessed. “I haven’t told him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “Well, if the attorney has taken your money and skipped town—I’m not saying that he has, but as you said, it’s a possibility—it might be nice for the police to know, don’t you think?”

  “God, I feel so stupid.”

  “Stupid? He has a good reputation, and he’s done more transactions than anyone else in town. What’s there to feel stupid about?”

  “You’re probably right,” I said half-heartedly.

  “I am right. And I promise we’ll get this sorted out, Nat.”

  “You think?”

  “I know,” she insisted. Her confidence was comforting. “Well. Now that we’ve got a plan for your financial issues,” she continued, “how are you and Gwen managing? Are you okay?”

  “Adam’s here with her. I’m making us green chile stew for dinner—hoping it will entice her to eat something.”

  “Is that the one with the pulled pork and the potatoes and that yummy sauce?” she asked. I could almost hear her drooling.

  “And cornbread.”

  “How much do you have?”

  “Enough for four. I’ll set another place at the table,” I said, smiling for the first time that day.

  Misery loves company.

  _____

  The pork stew was delicious, reminding me of Texas despite the snow whirling down outside the window. In Austin, I often served it with homemade corn tortillas, but I didn’t have masa on hand, so I had made cornbread muffins instead, and managed to pack away four of them. As always, the act of putting ingredients together and feeding people—including myself—had been soothing. Gwen might lose weight under stress, I reflected as I placed the warm, sweet-smelling cornbread muffins in a basket with a clean towel, but I had a rather frustrating habit of picking up anything she dropped. And then some.

  The green chile stew had the perfect mix of heat and rich flavor, matched by the counterpoint of the moist muffins, but the conversation was less than stimulating. For much of the evening, the only sound in the kitchen was the clink of spoons and chewing—and an occasional plaintive meow from Biscuit, who was still hoping for something better in her food bowl. Adam and Charlene each made it through two bowls and a handful of muffins, but Gwen just picked at her food. Charlene did her best to keep the conversation rolling, but it was challenging with the two elephants in the kitchen with us: Fernand, and the uncertain future of the inn.

  It wasn’t until Adam and Gwen retreated to the parlor that Charlene and I were able to talk freely. As I cleared the table and began putting together the batter for Gwen’s favorite muffins—Lemon Blueberry Ricotta—Charlene deposited herself in one of my chairs with a tin of fudge. The kitchen light caught the sequins on the shoulders of her candy apple red sweater. Combined with the green eye shadow, the sweater made her look like an attractive elf.

  “I wasn’t going to show you this, but thought you should know,” she said, retrieving a copy of the Daily Mail from her capacious cloth bag.

  I set down the flour canister and picked up the paper. The article was buried on page five, but it was definitely there. “Local inn faces foreclosure.”

  “How can they print this?” I asked, feeling my stomach turn over. “It’s totally unsubstantiated.”

  “She found the record at the county clerk’s office,” Charlene said, brushing a crumb of fudge from her sweater.

  “It’s in public records?” I groaned. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “At least it’s not a top news item,” Charlene said. “And it’s only the local paper; most of your customers don’t subscribe to the Daily Mail.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I said.

  “Like your future mother-in-law’s impending arrival? Or Fernand’s death?”

  “It’s hard to choose,” I said gloomily as I measured out flour.

  “I found out that Fernand did have words with someone the night he died, you know,” Charlene said.

  “Who?”

  “The gallery owner,” she said. “The one with the awful pants. Fernand argued that Gwen should show her watercolors, but the guy was adamant that oils were selling better, and that’s what he commissioned.”

  “Not exactly a motive for murder,” I said, zesting a lemon. “He also had a rather snippy exchange with that Chu woman. Told her she was cheating the people who registered for her courses.” Charlene raised a tweezed, penciled eyebrow. “That might be a little more promising.”

  “What would she gain from killing him, though?” I asked as I zested a second lemon into a bowl. The fresh citrus fragrance gave my spirits a lift, perfuming the kitchen

  Charlene shrugged. “More business?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t seem like it would be enough. Although at the party, I did hear her ask about a proposal she had given him. She said ‘we’: I don’t know who else would have been involved.”

  “I know she and Murray Selfridge have been meeting lately,” Charlene said. “I assumed it was about her new retreat plans. Maybe the proposal had something to do with that.”

  “I meant to ask, but I never had a chance.”

  “Have you asked Gwen?”

  “Not yet, but I will.”

  “It’s certainly worth looking into,” Charlene said. “People do desperate things for money.”

  I measured the ricotta into a bowl and reached for the butte. “Gwen said he was dating a guy from Bangor. I wonder why he wasn’t at the party?”

  “Fernand’s always been private about his personal life,” Charlene said.

  “That’s certainly the truth. I didn’t know he was gay until Gwen told me yesterday.”

  Charlene blinked at me, the green frosted shadow sparkling in the kitchen light. “Really, Natalie?”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m just oblivious.”

  “Even Maggie figured it out,” Charlene said. “Heard her complaining about it last night, while she drank his champagne. Tania babysat for her, and she was making the most of it; Tom Lockhart had to give her a ride home.” She leaned back in her chair, putting her legs, which were encased in tight blue jeans, up on the corner of the table. “Do you have any more of that fudge handy?”

  “I’ve got one more tin,” I said, retrieving a green and red tin from the counter and setting it in the middle of the table. We both took big pieces. I closed my eyes, letting the rich chocolate fill my senses. The slight bitterness of the walnuts was a perfect counterpoint to the creamy sweetness. Comfort food: just what I needed. I turned back to my muffins with the taste of chocolate suffusing my mouth. “So,” Ch
arlene said as I licked the last bit of chocolate from my thumb. “We should probably find out what was going on with Fernand’s mystery man in Bangor. Does Gwen know who it is?”

  “I haven’t asked,” I said as I put the bowl in the mixer and turned it on low, adding in two eggs as the beaters whirled. “With the shock … I haven’t wanted to upset her. Besides, it’s not clear if there’s foul play.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to ask a few questions,” Charlene said.

  “We don’t even know what the police think yet.” I added the lemon zest to the ricotta/butter/egg mixture, inhaling the tart sweet aroma.

  “Does it matter what they think?” Charlene said. “Honestly, Nat. What’s their track record been so far?”

  “Less than stellar,” I admitted.

  “Gwen’s pretty convinced, and lord knows the police have been wrong before,” she said. “I’d love to know who inherits the gallery.”

  “That’s one option we don’t have to investigate.” I folded the dry ingredients into the batter. I’d store the mixture in the fridge and add the blueberries in the morning, I decided. “We should probably find out about the will, though.”

  We were both quiet as I stretched plastic wrap over the bowl and slid it into the refrigerator. The talk of wills brought us both back to Fernand—and what had happened to him.

  “How did he do it?” Charlene asked in a quiet voice.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, reaching for another piece of fudge.

  “How did he die?”

  The image of Fernand on the floor bloomed in front of me again as I told Charlene, “He slit his wrists with an Exacto knife.”

  She sat up straight. “An Exacto knife? Wouldn’t you think a butcher’s knife would be a better choice?”

  “I can’t even think about this right now,” I said, biting into another piece of fudge. But there wasn’t enough chocolate in the world to make my problems go away. “I don’t know if I’m going to have an inn, I don’t know what’s going to happen with Gwen, I haven’t told John about the foreclosure notice … Even my engagement ring is itching.”

  “It’s itching?” Charlene reached for my hand and inspected the ring. “What’s this black stuff on your finger?”