Cyanide with Christie Read online

  He tipped her chin up so she’d have to look him in the eye. He saw defiance there, and behind it something sad and vulnerable. Not what he wanted to see.

  ‘Just be careful, OK? For my sake if not for your own. Will you do that for me?’

  She hesitated, then nodded. Behind him he heard the door open. He dropped his hands and stepped back. Emily quickly rearranged her face and handed him a cup of coffee.

  Not quickly enough, apparently. ‘Did I interrupt something?’ Oscar asked. ‘I’m sorry, I should have knocked.’

  ‘No, don’t be silly, Oscar. If we wanted privacy we’d go upstairs. Come in and have some coffee.’ Emily gave Oscar her brightest smile.

  Luke was pretty sure going upstairs was not going to be on the agenda for tonight.

  As the week passed, Emily and Oscar’s friendship deepened day by day. The unpleasantness with Luke was allowed to fade into the background by unspoken mutual consent. Emily found herself being even friendlier to Oscar as if to make up to him for Luke’s accusation of fortune-hunting, although Oscar knew nothing about it.

  Oscar reported good progress on his book. Emily finished her personal Christmas preparations – which consisted of wrapping the gifts she’d purchased in Portland earlier in the month – and then found herself with time on her hands. Katie was so efficient, there was nothing for Emily to do in the house. The recreational reading and knitting that usually occupied her seemed frivolous now, aware as she acutely was of a genuine scholar doing genuine work right above her head.

  After all, Emily herself had been a scholar until quite recently. She’d felt ready to give it up until Oscar appeared, bringing with him the rarefied air of Academe that had been her native environment for so long. Breathing that air again was like emerging from clinging cloud cover onto an Alpine peak – bracing, invigorating. All other concerns looked as trivial from here, as safe and unadventurous, as would the toylike village nestling in the valley below.

  Emily got out all the books and papers relating to her long-planned book on Dostoevsky. She wanted to write about his conflicted relationship with his Orthodox faith as it played out in his fiction. She spread the materials out on the library table and read through the notes she’d made over the course of years. That bracing air turned gradually stale and stifling. Her notes were a labyrinth, as Dostoevsky himself was a labyrinth of conflicting ideas, reckless passions, and a spirit that desperately longed to soar above it all and kiss the face of God.

  And the cats, who normally had a reliable sense of what was lap time (book in hand) and what was not (knitting or food in hand), were confused by this new activity that was neither. Levin prowled over the table, disturbing the slight semblance of order Emily had achieved with her papers and turning the pages of her open books. Kitty jumped into her lap and pushed her nose into Emily’s face, refusing to settle down.

  Whatever magic for scholars and writers Marguerite had perceived in this library on her previous visit was clearly not working for Emily.

  On Thursday afternoon, she reached her breaking point. Just as she had grasped a fleeting wisp of an idea that might make sense of it all, Levin jumped off a stack of papers, scattering them to the floor and startling Kitty so that she launched herself from Emily’s lap by digging in all her claws. The elusive idea dissipated instantly. Emily almost thought she could hear its taunting laughter as it retreated, never to return.

  But no, that was the doorbell. She glanced at her watch – ten minutes to four. Katie would be busy preparing tea, and further work was hopeless now. Emily hastily gathered the spilled papers and answered the door herself.

  Wanda Wilkins stood on the porch, dressed in the same fake-fur coat and jeans she’d worn on Tuesday. But she’d changed her black boots for a brown pair with even more treacherous heels.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ Emily said, unable to keep the surprise from her voice. ‘Do come in.’ Whatever Wanda’s business might be, the day was too cold to stand with the door open. ‘Is there a problem with the cottage?’

  Wanda stepped inside. ‘No problem. You gave me two keys by mistake. I came to return the spare.’ She held out a key attached to a plastic tag.

  Emily glanced at the key. ‘That wasn’t a mistake. Those cottages usually have at least two people staying, so I always give two keys. It wasn’t necessary to return it.’ Wanda stood stubbornly holding out the key, so Emily took it. ‘But thank you for taking the trouble.’

  Wanda gazed around the foyer with obvious interest. She put out her hand and stroked the wooden paneling. ‘Nice place you’ve got here.’

  ‘Thank you. How did you find me, by the way?’ Emily had left a phone number with her but not an address.

  ‘Asked at the Crab Pot. Everybody in town knows where you live.’

  Wanda was clearly not ready to leave – odd, since she hadn’t seemed particularly friendly when they first met. Emily swallowed her confusion and remembered her manners. ‘Would you like to join us for tea? I expect Katie will have it ready shortly.’

  ‘Katie?’

  ‘My housekeeper. Well, really the co-manager of the retreat center now. We’re opening up Windy Corner as a writers’ retreat.’

  ‘Oh, right, I think I heard something about that. Sure, thanks. I’ve never had tea made by a housekeeper before.’ Her voice held a sneer that belied the surface courtesy of her words.

  Emily led the way into the library, where the fire presented a cheery glow. Leaving Wanda to warm her hands, she poked her head into the kitchen to warn Katie they had an extra person for tea.

  ‘No problem,’ Katie said. ‘We’ve got plenty.’

  Emily returned to the library to see Wanda examining the ornaments on the mantelpiece as if appraising them for auction. She had replaced the genuine bronze Tang Dynasty horse and picked up the silver cow creamer when she saw Emily and hastily set the creamer down. ‘Really nice place you’ve got here,’ she repeated. ‘Nice things.’

  ‘It’s only modern Dutch,’ Emily said, as a test. The creamer was actually an eighteenth-century English one that Bertie Wooster’s Uncle Tom would have drooled over.

  But Wanda gave her a look that proved, unsurprisingly, she didn’t get the joke. ‘Still worth a packet, I bet.’

  Emily suppressed a sigh and moved to her favorite chair, gesturing her guest to the chair opposite. ‘Katie will be right in with the tea.’

  Wanda sat back in the wing chair and, to Emily’s dismay, put her wet-booted feet up on the ottoman. ‘This is the life. I could get used to this.’

  ‘I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m grateful. That’s why I decided to share this house as a writers’ retreat.’

  ‘Guess I’ll have to write a book then.’

  Emily heard Oscar’s voice in the hall and Katie’s in reply. ‘Come on in, Oscar,’ Emily called. Perhaps he could turn this odd exchange into a conversation.

  Emily’s chair half-faced the door, while Wanda’s was turned away from it. Oscar held the door open for Katie with her tray and followed her in, smiling. He bent to help himself to a scone, then jumped at the sight of Wanda’s feet on the ottoman, dropping the scone back on to the plate. Sweeping up the stray crumbs into his hand, he said to Emily, ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.’

  ‘No problem. Oscar Lansing, I’d like you to meet Wanda Wilkins. She’s renting one of my cottages for the holidays.’

  Wanda extended her hand to Oscar without getting up. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’ Oscar shook her hand, then sat on one of the hearth cushions facing the two wing chairs. His hands still shook slightly. He must have a nervous disposition.

  Emily poured tea for Wanda, who declined her offer of local honey in favor of three cubes of sugar. Oscar took his with milk and one sugar, as usual. Emily drizzled a bit of honey into her own tea and sipped it slowly, grateful for the excuse not to talk for a minute.

  Wanda seemed completely at ease. She appraised Beatrice’s fine bone china with narrowed e
yes and pursed lips, but Katie’s delectable pastries she barely sampled. ‘Got to watch the carbs if I want to fit into these jeans,’ she said by way of apology. Emily bit her tongue to avoid commenting that ‘fit’ was hardly the word.

  Oscar said little, finished his tea quickly, and excused himself. ‘Better get back to my writing. Nice to have met you, Ms Wilkins.’

  Wanda flashed him a smile that seemed warmer than such a brief acquaintance would justify. Surely she wasn’t coming on to him? She had to be a full generation older despite her attempts to dress like a twenty-year-old. And Oscar was a nice-enough-looking young man, but hardly what Emily would have considered cougar bait.

  She stood to see Oscar out of the room, and to her relief Wanda stood as well. ‘Best get going if I want to get to the rest home before dinner. Thanks for the tea. I’ll see myself out.’

  Emily wasn’t completely comfortable with that, but she let it pass. ‘Thanks for coming by.’ She stayed put until Wanda was out of the room, then softly moved to the door and watched her down the hall, ashamed to admit to herself that she wanted to make sure none of the ornaments in the hall found their way into Wanda’s furry pockets. But she was astonished to see instead her guest stopping Oscar at the foot of the stairs and whispering something to him. Oscar turned red and headed on up.

  Emily shook her head and turned back into the library. Indeed there were all kinds of people in the world, and it was beginning to look as if most of them would turn up at one time or another in Stony Beach.

  FIVE

  On Friday morning, Emily made another attempt to address her Dostoevsky notes and felt as if she’d made a tiny increment of progress – traversing perhaps a single verst of the immense vastness that was the Russian Empire. She was in equal parts sorry and relieved that her other guests were expected to arrive in the late afternoon and evening. She would have to tidy her things away to make room for them to work in the library if they wished.

  Looking at the weather from her front porch, though, she wondered if they would all be able to get there safely. The solid cloud cover had been growing lower and darker all week, with only a few showers to show for it. She was certain some extremely nasty weather was on the way, and the strength of the icy wind suggested it would probably hit today.

  Luke called after breakfast and confirmed her suspicions. He was her source for weather reports since she had neither TV, radio, smartphone, nor computer in the house and didn’t take a newspaper except, willy-nilly, the free local weekly, The Wave. ‘Storm’s gonna hit tonight, they say. Lots of freezing rain, maybe even snow. If you have any errands to do, better do them now.’

  Emily crossed herself with a silent prayer. ‘I think we’re good. Katie’s laid in enough food for an army, and I’ve got plenty of yarn stashed away – those are the essentials, right?’ She kept her voice light, although in fact she was apprehensive. Power outages were not uncommon in winter storms, and she’d read too many mysteries in which terrible things happened when the lights went out.

  ‘Candles and batteries?’

  ‘Oodles. Beatrice stocked this place like a fortress.’

  ‘What about your guests coming in?’

  ‘I am rather concerned about them. Perhaps I should call and warn them to come early.’

  ‘Might be a good idea. They all coming from Portland?’

  ‘Through Portland, anyway. A couple are flying in.’

  Luke whistled. ‘You are in the big time. Got people flying in from out of state to come to your retreat center. You still gonna talk to me after you get your head swelled by hobnobbing with the rich and famous?’

  ‘Are you kidding? If they really do act like the rich and famous, I’ll need a good, healthy dose of the down-to-earth in the form of you by way of antidote.’ He laughed, and she went on, ‘You are coming to dinner, right? So you can vet everybody face to face?’ Luke had done his background checks and found no red flags, but as he’d said when he gave her the news, ‘There’s always a first time for a wrong ’un to go wrong.’

  ‘You bet. Got Pete and Heather on duty for emergency calls. I’ll be there come hell or high water. Hoping for neither, of course.’

  When they finished talking, Emily called Marguerite and gave her the weather report.

  ‘Dommage. Moi, I will be there by teatime with Alex.’ Alex was her student novelist. ‘Also I bring Monsieur MacDonald and Mademoiselle Mountjoy from the airport. Teatime should be early enough to beat the storm, non?’

  ‘I certainly hope so.’

  ‘That will leave only young Monsieur Weaver. I will let him know to come as early as he can.’

  ‘Great. Thanks, Marguerite.’ That got Emily off the hook with regard to making phone calls to strangers – something she’d never gotten comfortable with in thirty years of professional life. Fortunately she’d surrounded herself with extroverts, to whom talking to strangers came as naturally as holing up alone with a book did to Emily.

  By teatime, a light rain had begun to fall, but the temperature was still above freezing. Marguerite and her passengers arrived cold and damp but safe. However, only three people extracted themselves from her Peugeot instead of the expected four.

  ‘Where’s Alex?’ Emily whispered to Marguerite as the other two struggled out of their wraps in the hall.

  Marguerite frowned in disgust. ‘He begged off at the last minute, the young fool. Said his father had insisted he come home for Christmas break. But I have never heard before that his father cared to have him around, at Christmas or any other time.’ She shrugged. ‘Moi, I think he is afraid to confront the naked page. His loss.’

  Marguerite’s more illustrious passengers were now divested of their outer garments and waiting to be introduced. ‘Emily Cavanaugh, may I present Olivia Mountjoy and Ian MacDonald.’

  Emily shook their hands in turn, thinking Luke’s quip about hobnobbing with the rich and famous might turn out to have some foundation in reality. Both her guests gave the impression of being strong personalities, seeming to fill more space than their mere physical presence could account for.

  Ian MacDonald was tall – about Luke’s height, she guessed – with thick salt-and-pepper hair swept back from a noble-looking forehead. His handsome face and well-formed body both showed signs of encroaching age, but he carried his years with distinction and grace. He reminded Emily a bit of Sean Connery. But where the lines in Connery’s face seemed etched by good humor, the lines of Ian MacDonald’s face suggested worry and discouragement. Nevertheless, he spoke with perfect ease and charm as he brought her hand to his lips.

  ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance.’ His slight Scottish burr accentuated the Connery connection – no doubt deliberately. ‘And I am so very grateful you have chosen to open your most gracious home.’

  ‘And I that you have consented to honor it with your presence,’ Emily replied, feeling herself blush. If Luke was jealous of Oscar, how would he react to the presence of this charmer in her home?

  She turned to the woman next to him, noting that she stood deliberately apart. The space between her and Ian crackled with energy, and Emily wondered what history they had together; it seemed unlikely they had met for the first time in Marguerite’s car.

  Of the two, Olivia Mountjoy was actually the more striking, now that Emily got a good look at her. Tall and willowy with slightly drooping posture, she had the perfect body for the clothes she wore, which were reminiscent of a thirties movie – a well-tailored suit in a soft dove gray, with a fitted jacket and mid-calf-length skirt that flared gently at the hem. A white lace jabot peeked out from between her lapels, and a neat gray hat sat jauntily on her jet-black hair – jet black, that is, except for a streak of pure white shooting back from her left temple. Any internal comparison to the Bride of Frankenstein, however, was immediately forestalled by the regal beauty of her features. Olivia Mountjoy put Marguerite in the shade, and that was saying something.

  ‘Ms Mountjoy. So happy to have you here. I’ve just re
ad your Death in the Doorway and found it quite delightful.’

  Olivia had the kind of opaque white skin that does not blush easily, but she lowered her eyes in what looked like embarrassed modesty. Emily was taken aback. Surely such a well-known writer – and one who looked so self-assured – was well accustomed to receiving the praise of fans?

  Olivia murmured vague thanks and immediately added, ‘Thank you for having me. Marguerite has told me a great deal about Windy Corner, and none of her praise was exaggerated, I assure you.’

  Emily smiled at the subtle Pride and Prejudice allusion. She was going to like this woman. ‘Let’s go into the library, shall we? I’ll show you your rooms after tea.’

  As they led the way, she whispered to Marguerite, ‘Any idea when Dustin Weaver might arrive?’

  ‘Non. I only got his voicemail.’

  Oscar was waiting by the fire, and Emily introduced the newcomers. When he heard Ian MacDonald’s name, Oscar flushed and his eyes shone. ‘Mr MacDonald, this is indeed an honor. I’ve admired your work for years. Congregation of Vapours was absolutely brilliant.’

  Ian inclined his head graciously. He, at least, was clearly accustomed to praise.

  ‘But I must have missed your latest books – I haven’t seen a new one for some time.’

  Oscar’s observation was made in obvious innocence, but it visibly flustered Ian. ‘I – ah – I’ve been working on a major new book, a clear departure from anything I’ve done before. Needs a lot of research, careful planning. I’m hoping to make some good progress while I’m here.’

  After years of listening to student excuses, Emily knew a writerly evasion when she heard one. She would bet her best bottle of aged tawny port that Ian was simply blocked. Possibly the well of inspiration had run permanently dry.

  She poured the tea while Katie handed around the finger sandwiches, cakes, and scones. Ian, Oscar, and Marguerite filled their plates, but Olivia declined everything except tea.

  ‘Olivia, aren’t you hungry? It would be a shame to miss Katie’s superb baking.’