Alicia tapped the now-empty water bottle against her palm. “Oh, Delamont claimed he’d made a trip to that restaurant for the house special, and when it wasn’t what he expected—because Damian had to substitute stuff, you see—he threw a fit. Chewed Damian out in front of the other patrons as well as the owner.”
“I suspect Damian did not take well to that sort of treatment.”
“Heavens, no. They had a regular knock-down, drag-out. Verbally, at least.”
I met Alicia’s amused gaze with a roll of my eyes. “I can imagine, unfortunately.”
“I bet you can. Anyway, Damian was really steamed about it. I remember Isabella having to calm him down so he’d be in the right frame of mind to create some cakes for one of her book club teas. This was a day later too, so I guess he’d been stewing about it all night and morning.”
I stared back down at the letter dangling from my fingers. “But there’s probably not a connection …”
Cutting me off again with a loud sniff, Alicia tossed her bottle into the recycling bin. “Yeah, well, I heard Damian muttering about Delamont when he was fixing the food for your War of the Roses dinner. It was after he caught a glimpse of him in the dining room, I guess. Anyway, he banged a few pans around and muttered something about Delamont being a ‘nasty snitch’ who ‘screwed things up for other people.’” Alicia tapped the side ofher nose with one finger. “Which makes me wonder if your blackmailing bookdealer was the one who soured that restaurant owner on hiring Damian. He might not have lived here, but he did know some people in town pretty well, from what I’ve heard through the grapevine.”
“It could be, I suppose.” I laid the letter back on the counter. “Which means I should share this with the authorities. Even though it doesn’t mention who told the owner not to hire Damian.”
“But the police can probably find that out easily enough. All they have to do is question the person who sent the letter.”
“I guess you’re right.” I stared at the letter, wishing, in a way, that I’d never found it. I hated throwing more suspicion on Damian.
But if he did kill Lincoln Delamont, he needs to be brought to justice for that crime.I shook my head. Somehow, the more I heard about Lincoln, the less I felt like finding his murderer. Even though I knew that didn’t constitute rational thinking.
Of course, at four in the morning, who was rational? I shrugged off my indecision, folded the letter, and stuck it in the pocket of my robe. “I’ll give it to Detective Johnson tomorrow,” I told Alicia, who was eyeing me with suspicion. “I mean, we don’t know this letter connects Damian to Lincoln, do we?”
“Nope. Although if it was Delamont who messed up Damian’s chance at that job …” Alicia allowed that thought to dangle as she walked past me. She paused in the doorway to glance back at me over her shoulder. “That could be a strong motive for murder, don’t you think?”
What I thought was that her possible desire to protect Isabella Harrington’s reputation offered an equally valid motive, but I didn’t voice this aloud. Instead I just bid her good-night.
I waited until I heard her footfalls on the stairs before I left the kitchen. But I didn’t immediately head back to my own room. Instead, I wandered into the library, figuring I might as well check another couple of shelves. I doubted I’d fall asleep at that point, and there was no sense in just lying in my bed staring at the ceiling. Searching the books for more of Isabella’s hidden notes or letters seemed like a better use of my time.
My search didn’t yield anything until I opened a copy of Dorothy Sayers’sMurder Must Advertise. Since she was one of my favorite authors, I had my own dog-eared copy that I’d read several times, but I’d never opened this one. Flipping through it, I discovered another folded sheet of onionskin paper tucked between chapters ten and eleven.
I didn’t bother to read it this time, instead sliding it into the pocket with Damian’s letter and heading back to my bedroom.
Placing Damian’s letter on my dresser, I crossed over to my bed and slumped down onto the firm mattress. I opened the newly discovered document, expecting another innocuous but possibly coded message from the mysterious Paul.
But this was a note written in Isabella’s hand. After smoothing out the folds on my knee, I read an account of some party she’d attended, deducing from the references to popular music and clothing that it had been written in the early seventies.
All of which was vaguely interesting, in a historical sort of way, but seemed otherwise too bland and inconsequential to be connected to my great-aunt’s other, more mysterious documents.
Until I ran across a name that made me gasp and release my hold on the letter. The flimsy paper fluttered from my fingers and drifted to the floor near my bare feet. I didn’t bother to pick itup. My mind was processing a discovery I knew would require additional thought.
And careful questioning of the person mentioned in the document. An individual I trusted, who had claimed she’d not known Isabella in the 1970s. Someone who’d always told me, and others, that she’d first met Isabella after moving to Beaufort in the eighties.
A woman identified in Isabella’s letter only by her initials, but lauded as a friend and confidant. Someone my great-aunt respected for her knowledge of the world, which she traveled for her job as a film-location scout.
I picked up the letter and stared at the damning paragraphs again. No, I had not been mistaken. Isabella’s script was florid but the initials were clear enough—anEand anM.
My neighbor, Ellen Montgomery.
Chapter Twenty-One
I never fell back to sleep after my discovery in the library, which meant I was in a daze on Wednesday morning. After helping Alicia serve breakfast to an equally bleary-eyed Tara and her mother as well as Scott, I stumbled back to my room and fell across my bed.
Fortunately, I’d mentioned my ten o’clock meeting to Alicia while we made breakfast, so she banged on my door when I didn’t appear again by nine thirty.
“Said you needed to be someplace by ten,” she said, when I cracked open the door.
I muttered something that I hoped sounded like “Thanks.” After grabbing a quick shower, I didn’t bother blow-drying my hair before I threw on a cap-sleeved lavender silk blouse, white cotton slacks, and a pair of beige canvas espadrilles.
