Copy Cap Murder: A Hat Shop Mystery Part 19

"You weren't engaged then?" Simms asked. It was the first time he had addressed Elise directly, and I saw Franks give him a look.

"No," she said.

"And you were not dating?" he asked.

"Not in the traditional sense," she said. She gave us a rueful glance. "Ours was a match made in media heaven. A morning show anchor dating one of the richest men in London; it seemed like such a good idea when my agent pitched it to me."

"What happened?" he asked.

"Win was great in the beginning," she said. "Clever, charming and very photogenic, he really did boost my status at first."

"What happened next?" Franks asked. This time I saw Simms give him a look. I didn't think that I was imagining a tension between the two of them.

"He became increasingly demanding," she said. "He seemed to forget that I was the arm candy that was supposed to bolster his credibility, which was suffering after several business ventures went awry."

"Did he harm you?"

"Fat chance of that!" Sam said. "I never left her alone with him."

Elise gave Sam a tender smile, the sort of smile a girl gives only to her knight in s.h.i.+ning armor. This told me more than anything that Elise's relations.h.i.+p with Win had never been more than window dressing.

"No, he didn't harm me, but he was beginning to tarnish my reputation with his behavior, the drinking, the drugs, the public scenes with tawdry girls," she said. "I wanted out. I begged him to end the phony relations.h.i.+p but he refused."

"Why?" Viv asked. "Clearly, it wasn't doing him any good or he would have valued it more."

"I think he liked torturing me," Elise said. "The more upset I got, the more outlandish his behavior became. He was sick and twisted that way."

"What happened at the party?" Franks asked.

Elise and Sam exchanged a glance. It was obvious they were trying to decide if they needed to call for an attorney before they continued talking.

"As I said, we can always do this elsewhere, such as the station, if you'd be more comfortable," Franks said.

"You're quite the pushy git, aren't you?" Sam growled.

"Oy, mind your tone," Franks barked.

"Everyone calm down, yeah?" Fee asked.

"I'm sorry," Elise said. "It's been a very difficult time. My ratings are down and the network has put me on probation."

Her eyes watered up and I glanced away. Now I was beginning to feel the guilt of having her walk into what was essentially an ambush.

"Win was drunk, not a surprise, at the party," she said. "The Daily Mail had just published another story about him and I told him I was fed up with it. I told him I was ending the arrangement."

"Then what happened?" Franks asked.

"He told me that if I ended our relations.h.i.+p, he would ruin my career," she said.

"Which is a b.l.o.o.d.y load of codswallop," Sam said. "He can't touch her. We left the party shortly after, leaving him to wallow in his own stupid, drunken filth."

"Perhaps," Franks agreed. "But there is the small matter that no one knows exactly what time you left."

"We hired a car," Sam said. "Which I already told that one." He paused to point his thumb at Inspector Simms. "Get the receipt from them."

"We're trying," Simms said. His unibrow was lowered over his eyes in a look that I knew meant he was unhappy. "Strangely, they have no record of picking you up at the Carsons."

"But that's impossible," Elise said.

"Impossible or not, it is so," Simms said.

"You're obviously not working hard enough to clear her," Sam said. "Do you like tarnis.h.i.+ng her reputation? Do you enjoy the celebrity by a.s.sociation? Tell me, do we have your memoir about the case to look forward to?"

"You are bang out of order!" Simms bellowed. "It is not our job to clear her, it's our job to find a murderer, and if it's you or her or both of you, I'll have no problem putting you in the nick for it!"

His voice boomed and we all jumped. Franks reached up and put his hand on Simms's arm.

"Easy, Simms, it's all in a day's work," he said.

Simms shook him off. "Don't tell me how to run my case."

"It's not your case anymore," Franks said.

The two men stared at each other and I realized that this was probably the source of the tension I had felt between them. Franks coming back to town had adjusted Simms's position so that he was no longer the lead investigator.

"I don't care what the superintendent says, it's still mine," Simms said.

"Listen, this is what happens in high-profile cases," Franks said. "You have no experience leading this sort of media circus, which is why I came back from York to give you backup."

"No one asked you to," Simms said.

"How do you know they didn't ask?" Franks said.

Simms turned away, looking like he wanted to punch something or someone. I hoped Sam Kerry was smart enough not to walk into that.

"Ms. Stanford, Mr. Kerry, even if we do manage to get the record of time from the hired car, we still have one problem," Franks said. "The security camera system at the Carson house suffered a malfunction about ten minutes before Winthrop Dashavoy was murdered. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Chapter 22.

I really thought Elise was going to faint again. Both she and Sam denied any knowledge of the security camera debacle, but it seemed weak to me. They were in television; they must have some technical knowledge. Disabling a security camera system was probably as easy as a sneeze for them.

Franks and Simms dismissed them, and Elise paused beside me as they were leaving.

"I didn't kill Win," she said.

I didn't know what to say, which was a rare occurrence for me, so I just nodded.

"I know they're looking at Harrison Wentworth because of the fight he had with Win," she said. "And I know the fight was about you."

Again, I nodded. I felt as awkward as a schoolgirl holding up the wall at a dance.

"I'll still run the segment on the morning show," she said. "Even though I am quite certain you set me up."

I could feel my face burn with embarra.s.sment, but I cleared my throat and said, "How Sam feels about you is how I feel about Harrison."

She looked surprised, and I smiled.

"It's obvious that he cares for you very much," I said.

She cast Sam a furtive glance. He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, looking fierce in the direction of Inspectors Franks and Simms as they talked to Viv and Fee.

Elise smiled. "I care for him very much, too."

"So you understand why I did what I did," I said.

She nodded. Then she surprised me by hugging me. When she had me close, she whispered, "If you want to help your boyfriend, look at Reese Evers."

She stepped back and Sam appeared beside her. Together they left the shop, making a beeline for a waiting sedan with tinted windows.

Now why had she told me that and not the police? Reese Evers owned half of one of the most influential moneymaking companies in London. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Elise didn't want to be fingered for tossing Reese's name at the police so she threw it my way instead.

Inspectors Simms and Franks met me by the door.

"All right, Scarlett?" Simms asked.

I nodded. Franks paused while shrugging on his overcoat and hit me with a beady stare.

"Don't feel guilty," he said. "You did the right thing."

"Did I?" I asked.

"Elise has replaced Harrison as our prime suspect," he said. "So yes, you did."

"Harrison is still a person of interest, though?" I asked, wanting clarification.

"Until the case is solved, every person in the city of London is a person of interest," he said. "Including you."

"Wow, and just when I was beginning to feel better," I said.

Franks pushed the door open and a whoosh of cold air blew across my body, making me s.h.i.+ver. I had the feeling there was not enough caulk in the world to stop the cold that was coming.

"Beware, Scarlett," Simms said as he followed his partner. "There is a murderer out there, and if they feel exposed, I doubt they'll hesitate to kill again."

This time I s.h.i.+vered but it wasn't from the cold.

A reasonable person would take to heart the inspector's words and back away from Dashavoy's murder. Well, I am nothing if not unreasonable. I spent the rest of my afternoon going over the guest list that Tuesday Blount had e-mailed me, which had been accompanied by a terse note that pretty much told me to go to h.e.l.l without actually saying so, because I am stubborn like that.

I was torn between being relieved that Elise was their new primary suspect and guilty because I was the one who had put her there. I just didn't get the killer vibe off her. Yeah, I know, lots of killers are good at hiding their crazy, but I didn't get crazy off her either. And the person who had strangled Winthrop Dashavoy had definitely been crazy or at the very least crazy mad.

This is what kept me poring over the list of guests. There had to be someone whose name would pop out as having had a bad falling-out with Win. My method wasn't very sleuthy. I should have been pounding the pavement, banging on doors, and asking tough questions while chomping on a pipe and wearing a deerstalker cap, but it was cold and windy outside, so I was copying and pasting names from the guest list into an Internet search engine with Win's full name and hoping for a scandal to reveal itself like two pokes to the eyes.

I had worked my way through a third of the list and so far I had nothing. I knew that Nick would probably be able to take a quick scan at the list and immediately tell me who was who and what was what, but I didn't want to intrude on him while he was drilling and filling a patient and I didn't have the patience to wait until he was off work.

While I was doing this, I kept mulling over Elise telling me to look at Reese. Did she think Reese was having an affair with Win like Tuesday had intimated? I supposed anything was possible, but it just seemed such an odd pairing.

Reese was a wealthy widow, who was incredibly well maintained. What would she see in a man so young, who while good-looking was utterly reprehensible? Not to mention the fact that I doubted Reese would have the strength to strangle Win, even if he had taken a shot to the eye and was drunk. It just didn't seem likely.

Maybe what Elise had been trying to tell me was that Reese knew something, or at least Elise suspected that Reese knew something. What had been the relations.h.i.+p between Reese and Win? I had a feeling this was a critical piece of the puzzle and I wondered if Inspectors Simms and Franks had figured it out yet.

Then, of course, I wondered how angry they would be if I asked them about Reese. Simms had been pretty clear in his warning that I should stay away from the case and it was obvious there was some discord between the inspectors about who was in charge of the case.

I had no intention of making myself a target but I knew that owning the hat shop gave me access to people and places that the police didn't have-okay, they had access but I didn't think they were as welcome.

"Scarlett, I am famished," Viv declared. "Can we close early and pick up some take-away?"

"No, what if a customer comes?" I asked. "You can't just change your hours. It takes years to build a customer base-"

"But only seconds to lose it," Viv said. "Yes, Mim bludgeoned that expression into us, although she always closed when she felt like it."

"People were more forgiving back in the day," I said.

"Fine," she said. "If I promise to stay out front with my work and mind the store, will you go get us dinner?"

"That depends," I said. "How far do you expect me to walk? It's cold out there, you know."

"I must have falafel," she said. "You know from Falafel King."

I glanced at the window and felt the cold pressing up against it. It was dark outside and I didn't need much imagination to feel the bitter air in my throat and nose. I would have balked but it was only a quarter of a mile and I was hungry, too. Besides Falafel King really did have the best falafel and it would totally hit the spot.

"Okay, I'll go, but you had better be nice to anyone who comes in," I said.

"You make me sound like I'm a Billy No Mates," Viv said. "Like I don't have any friends or know how to talk to people."

I just stared at her. In the months I had been here I certainly hadn't met any recent friends and she refused to talk about her husband, so yeah, I wasn't sold on her people skills.

"Don't say it," she said. "I'm not discussing him."

I wasn't surprised she knew what I'd been thinking. We'd always understood each other perfectly, and even with this husband she'd wedged between us, we still did. It was a bit of a relief, actually.

I put my purse on the counter while I pulled on my jacket, scarf, gloves and hat. I was still wearing the beanie from the party. I liked the razzle-dazzle of the pearls she had put on it, plus it kept my head warm.