French Fried Page 5

  He briefly nodded his thanks to me, then turned away to say something to one of the medics, and I went back to the kitchen and started another pot of coffee so Declan and I could have a cup.

  That’s when I thought of Sophie.

  My throat tightened and my eyes filled with tears. “I need to call her,” I said. “Sophie needs to know—”

  Declan wiggled his cell phone at me. “Already done. She wanted to come out but I told her the police weren’t allowing anyone near the house. And before you tell me it’s not true, I know that. I just didn’t want her driving here in the dark by herself.”

  It was a good plan and I told him as much while I ground more beans and a torrent of tears streaked down my cheeks. When I was finished and our coffee was in cups, I grabbed a linen towel from the sink and dabbed my cheeks, then sat down in a chair across from the one Declan had taken at the table, neither of us knowing where to begin or what to say.

  I sipped my coffee. “You know the cop.”

  “Yeah.” Declan ran a finger around the rim of his cup. “Tony Russo. He went to school with my brother Riordan. I’ve known him for years.”

  “He likes you.”

  “You mean he doesn’t dislike me, not like Gus Oberlin back in Hubbard.”

  “Gus is—”

  “An idiot.”

  “And Tony?”

  Even though from where we were sitting, we couldn’t see into the parlor, we could hear the murmur of voices from in there, and Declan glanced that way. “Tony’s good people.”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that about a cop.”

  “I’m not that hardheaded.” Declan drank his coffee. “I’m more than willing to give credit where credit is due. In Gus’s case, it isn’t due.”

  “And in Tony’s?”

  “Like I said, good people. He isn’t convinced that every Fury is a criminal and every Traveller who passes through has felonious thoughts on his mind.”

  “That’s because he knows your family.”

  “And he isn’t an idiot.”

  There was something wrong about having such a seemingly normal conversation in light of what we’d come to Pacifique and found. I edged back in my chair, putting some distance between myself and the memory, and when I saw that my cup was empty and Declan’s was, too, I got up and refilled them.

  “You’re never going to sleep tonight,” he said, even as he loaded his coffee with milk and sugar.

  “There’s no way I’m going to sleep, anyway. I might as well stay awake with really good coffee in me.” As if to prove I didn’t care, I slugged down half the coffee in my cup and dared to say the words that had been nibbling at the edges of my mind since we’d walked in and found Rocky.

  “Declan, you don’t think—”

  “Good coffee.” I turned toward the doorway and found Tony Russo standing there, his empty cup in one hand. “I’m pretty sure Declan had nothing to do with it, so I figured I’d better thank you, Ms. . . .”

  “Inwood. Laurel Inwood.”

  When I introduced myself, Tony’s sandy brows rose a fraction of an inch. “The same Laurel Inwood who’s turned Sophie’s Terminal at the Tracks into a Hubbard hot spot?”

  He was making conversation, trying his darnedest to ease the tension in the room so he could talk to me and Declan and hopefully get some sort of sensible statements out of both of us. I knew his easy manner and light tone were all a come-on, and I didn’t care. In fact, I appreciated it.

  “I don’t know about the Terminal being a hot spot,” I told Tony. “But I’m glad the word is spreading. Stop by this week. We’re featuring . . .” The words clogged in my throat and I coughed to clear them. “We’ve got a French menu planned. In fact, Rocky was supposed to bring over some of her favorite recipes for us to use.”

  He came all the way into the room, poured himself another cup of coffee, and sat down at the head of the table. “What can you tell me?” he asked both of us.

  Declan and I exchanged looks, and somehow I knew he wanted me to take the lead. “Rocky was supposed to meet us at the fireworks show tonight,” I told Tony. “And when she didn’t show, we came to see what was wrong.”

  He had a notebook and he wrote down a line. “You’re a friend of hers?”

  I nodded. “She’s actually a friend . . . was a friend . . . of my aunt Sophie’s. Who really isn’t my aunt.”

  Maybe Tony was good people just like Declan said because he didn’t seem to find this odd. “That’s why you came looking for her?”

  Another nod, and then I realized since he was taking notes, he couldn’t see me. “She said she’d be there, at the fireworks, and after the way she left the parade so quickly this afternoon—”

  When Tony looked up, I realized we needed to start from the beginning.

  I told him that for weeks, Rocky had talked about little else except meeting Aurore Brisson and how she couldn’t wait to hear the lecture Andrew MacLain was going to give at the library. While I was at it, I mentioned that she’d seemed distracted the night before when she came to the Terminal, and since he was going to hear it from someone else if he didn’t hear it from me, I even told him about how she’d made a scene at the Book Nook.

  “And the parade?”

  Declan filled him in on that part, about how Aurore Brisson’s presence didn’t even seem to register and about how Rocky ran out before the parade was even over.

  “Do you think she had any reason to kill herself?” Tony asked.

  I sucked in a breath and for what seemed like a long time, I was so horrified, I couldn’t say a word. Finally Declan got up and got me a glass of water and urged me to drink it, and when I did and finished coughing and choking and pounding my chest, I looked at Tony in wonder.

  “You can’t possibly think—”

  “I don’t know what to think. Not yet. But I’ve got to consider all the possibilities.”

  I thought back to what we’d seen when we arrived. “You’re thinking about the bottle of wine that was open on the table near where she was sitting. You think she could have—”

  “Like I said, I don’t know. We won’t know anything for sure until an autopsy has been performed.” Tony sat back in his chair. “I’m just wondering if there’s any reason you know of that Ms. Arnaud would have wanted to take her own life.”

  The horror settled so deep inside me, I was certain it would never go away. My voice was flat; my eyes were on Tony. “You’re saying she didn’t die of natural causes.”

  “We can’t be sure yet,” he said.

  “Autopsy or no autopsy, you have reason to believe she didn’t die of natural causes. You think the wine had poison in it.”

  To Tony’s everlasting credit, he took the comment in stride. He also managed to keep as straight a poker face as any I’d ever seen.

  I could have screamed.

  Instead, I gripped the edge of the table until my knuckles were as white as the bones in that Grateful Dead poster. “No way,” I said. “No way Rocky would have taken her own life. She left us a voice mail message today. Doesn’t that prove it? She said she’d meet us at the fireworks show tonight. She wouldn’t have said that if she wasn’t planning on being there, and she wouldn’t have been planning on being there if she was going to kill herself. And she was excited about the whole French thing going on in Hubbard, about hearing the Statue of Liberty expert speak tomorrow, and even about Aurore Brisson. That is, until she got to the bookstore and met her. But that doesn’t mean anything. What matters is that Rocky was excited, that she had plans. That means she either died of natural causes or—”

  I couldn’t make myself say the words.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to. Tony looked from me to Declan. “Is there anyone you know of who would have wanted to see Ms. Arnaud dead?”

  Declan scraped a hand throug
h his hair. “She was a nice lady. She sold herbs. There can’t be anybody who could possibly—”

  “Aurore Brisson wasn’t fond of her,” I put in. “At the parade . . . well, if looks could kill, Rocky would have been dead on the spot.”

  “Brisson.” Tony wrote down the name. “Seems a little far-fetched, though, don’t you think? Ms. Arnaud confronts a total stranger at a bookstore and then the stranger just happens to—”

  “Tony?” One of the medics stuck his head into the room. “We’re ready to move the body.”

  He excused himself and went into the parlor.

  “It’s not happening,” I told Declan. “It can’t be.”

  “Hey.” He reached across the table and took my hand in his. “They’re going to find out it’s something normal like a heart attack or a stroke or something. Maybe that’s why Rocky was acting so weird. Maybe she wasn’t feeling well or maybe she knew something was wrong. Maybe she got bad news from her doctor and just hadn’t found a way to tell anybody about it. You’ll see.” He gave my fingers a squeeze. “That doesn’t mean her death isn’t sad, but mark my words, it’s not criminal.”

  • • •

  DECLAN WAS WRONG.

  I knew it in my hearts of hearts, but I kept my mouth shut when we got back to Sophie’s and sat up all night with her, talking about Rocky, telling stories, and laughing and crying in turn. By the time we were talked out it was nearly dawn, and Declan slept on the couch in the living room while Sophie and I went upstairs and grabbed a bit of sleep before we had to get to the Terminal.

  By the time I got up, got showered, and got dressed, Declan was gone, picked up by one of his brothers, and that was fine with me. We’d shared too much the night before—too much shock and too much grief and so much closeness, it made me uneasy—and I was just as glad that I’d be able to spend the day knee-deep in Terminal customers and Terminal problems and not have to share anymore.

  I got my wish; the Terminal was packed with Sunday patrons and our French menu items were a real hit with the crowd.

  Earlier in the week, I would have been thrilled. Now, it seemed somehow obscene to celebrate.

  “It’s not what she would want.” I was in the kitchen sprinkling thyme on quiches and sobbing softly when Sophie came in and put an arm around my shoulders. “She wouldn’t like to see you crying, Laurel. Rocky would want us to think about her life and celebrate it. She did so much good. With her work with the peace movement and with the food she grew and shared. She wasn’t the kind of person who’d want to see us feeling sad.”

  “She wasn’t the kind of person who should have died alone, either,” I said. “It’s wrong.”

  “Nobody said life was fair.” Sophie reached for the basket Rocky had left at the Terminal on Friday evening and took out the CDs of French music she’d brought us.

  “Not Piaf,” I said.

  Sophie grinned and held up the CD from Téléphone. “I think rock and roll might be just what we need.”

  Just as I knew she was trying to do, Sophie made me smile, and I went back to working on the quiche and smiled again when the French rockers started in. The music worked its magic on our crowd and by the time I took a break and walked through the restaurant to see how things were going, there were a couple of people dancing.

  It was the way Rocky would have wanted it, I told myself, and smiled.

  My smile lasted only until I turned toward the door and saw Tony Russo outside.

  Sophie’s Terminal at the Tracks is housed in an old train station, and I zipped through the main dining area, ignoring as I always did (or at least tried to), the mishmash of faux Victorian, things like teddy bears in puffy-sleeved gowns and posters that advertised items like unicycles and mustache wax. In the months I’d been there, I’d been slowly getting rid of as much of the kitsch as I could, but there was still lace everywhere, doilies and rickrack and curtains and bunting. Someday, I promised myself. Someday I’d get rid of it all.

  Then again, I wasn’t planning on hanging around long enough for someday to come.

  I walked through the small waiting area, where a wall of windows gave me a view of the French flag we flew outside, and I opened the front door. “You coming in?” I asked Tony.

  He was out of uniform that morning, dressed in khakis and a sweater in a soft shade of bluish gray that matched his eyes. He shrugged. “The sun’s shining and it’s plenty nice out here. How about you come outside and we talk?”

  I looked back over my shoulder into the restaurant to make sure everything was under control and stepped into the morning sunshine.

  “I don’t have time for breakfast,” Tony said. “I need to take my parents to church this morning.”

  Hubbard was that kind of place. Apparently, Cortland was, too.

  “I just wanted you to know . . .” He poked his hands into the pockets of his pants and as casual as he was acting, I couldn’t help but feel my stomach bunch and go cold.

  “The bottle of wine was poisoned,” I said.

  Tony shook his head. “I’ll admit, that’s what I thought we’d find, too. But, no.”

  I was so relieved, I thought my knees would give way right then and there. I let go a long breath and collapsed, my back to the sun-drenched front of the Terminal. “I’m so glad!” The instant the words were out of my mouth, I realized how callous they sounded and stood up straight. “That’s not what I meant!”

  Tony had a nice smile and I realized that while we were at Rocky’s the night before, I hadn’t seen it. “I know what you mean,” he said. “If Ms. Arnaud died of natural causes—”

  “It’s still sad but not nearly as horrible.” As crazy as it seemed, I felt like whooping with joy. Until I stopped and considered what Tony had just said.

  “If Ms. Arnaud died of natural causes.” My voice was hollow. “That’s what you said. You said if.”

  His nod was barely perceptible. “The wine wasn’t poisoned,” Tony told me. “But there were traces of cyanide in Ms. Arnaud’s glass, and you may not know, there’s cyanide in a lot of insecticides. She was a farmer, after all. Unless we uncover something that tells us otherwise, right now, we’re going with the theory that Raquel Arnaud killed herself.”

  Chapter 5

  It’s amazing how fast grief can morph into anger.

  And how quickly anger can sink so far deep inside that it turns into stone-cold determination.

  Even before Tony said his good-byes and walked away, my mind was made up. I knew there was no way Rocky had killed herself.

  I also knew I had no choice but to prove it.

  The wheels already spinning inside my head, I whirled and headed back into the Terminal. Right inside the door, I nearly ran over Inez Delgado.

  Inez is one of our waitresses, a young woman with curly dark hair, which she had pulled into a ponytail, and big, dark eyes. Automatically, I put a hand out to keep her from falling over.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “No worries.” Inez was dressed in black pants and a yellow polo shirt with the outline of the Terminal embroidered over the heart, and she gave me a soft smile. “I know what happened. Everybody does. I know you’re upset.”

  She was wrong.

  I was so far past upset, there was no place else to go.

  Nothing to do but find Rocky’s killer.

  “I’m just going to go . . .” I poked my thumb over my shoulder toward the Terminal office, a tiny room next to the kitchen. “Receipts and accounts,” I said by way of explanation, because it was better than letting Inez know that just like I’d done when a local TV reporter was killed at the Terminal the day I arrived in Hubbard, I was planning to investigate.

  Inside the office, I closed the door, blocking out the raucous sounds of Téléphone and the laughter of the people gyrating out on the dance floor. Before I sat down, I grabbed a legal pad. I poised pe
n over paper, ready to make a list, a plan, ready to plot a strategy that would bring Rocky’s killer to justice and give closure to her murder and to her life.

  Too bad I didn’t know where to begin.

  The sound I made was more of a grumble than a sigh, and I plumped back in the uncomfortable old desk chair. While I was at it, I grumbled some more. “Suicide!” I bit the word in half and I swear, if Tony Russo was around, I would have spit it back in his face. “No way.” I kicked the desk to emphasize my point and kept right on kicking it, to heck with the toe of my snakeskin ballet flats. “No way, no way, no way!”

  I was still kicking for all I was worth when the office door opened a crack and Declan stuck his head inside. “With all the noise going on in here, I figured someone was getting beat up. You okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay.” To prove it, I stood and raised my chin and I refused to flinch even when my toes protested their recent bad treatment. “It’s just that your friend Tony—”

  “Yeah, I know. I saw him outside.” Declan must have been heading to church, too, and I wasn’t surprised. After all, it was Sunday morning and he and his family were loyal attendees at St. Colman’s. He was wearing a dark suit that made his eyes look grayer and more intense than ever. His white shirt was blinding and his tie in swirls of mossy green and orange that popped was perfect for the season. He stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. “Taking it out on the office furniture isn’t going to change anything.”

  “I wasn’t taking it out on anything, I was thinking.”

  “Thinking with oomph.”

  It was more like ouch than oomph. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, the better to keep the pain in my toes from reminding me that next time, a little less oomph would result in a lot less ouch.