Clobbered by Camembert

CHAPTER

I found Georgia at Clydesdale Enterprises’ temporary offices, located above the Café au Lait Coffee Shop. Kaitlyn hadn’t gone to any expense to decorate the place. She had provided a couple of hardback chairs, a glass-top desk, and a file cabinet. Shelving on one wall held legal-sized boxes, a historical guide to Holmes County, and a feeble looking silk plant. A photograph naming Kaitlyn the Do-Gooder Woman of the Year hung on the opposite wall.

Georgia sat at the desk, typing on a laptop computer. She looked up when I entered and adjusted the shawl swaddling her shoulders. “May I help you?” Her face was puffy, her nose redder than before. Had she been crying? That was a bad combo with a cold.

“I wanted to see how you were feeling.” I removed my scarf and gloves but kept on my winterberry red blazer. The temperature in the office was warm, but not warm enough to shed a layer.

“I’m fine.” She sneezed three times in a row and reached for a pile of wadded-up tissues beside a to-go cup from Café au Lait. Her hand stopped short. Her gaze flitted to a stack of papers on the other side of the computer. In a flash, she scooped the papers off the table, slipped them into a file folder, inserted the folder into a red briefcase beneath the desk, then snatched a tissue. A magician ripping the tablecloth from a table couldn’t have been more deft.

The fleetness of her actions piqued my curiosity. Was she simply being organized or was she trying to keep me from seeing the papers, which in a brief glance looked like court documents? Was it a document ceding control of Clydesdale Enterprises to the CFO, as Rebecca had suggested?

Whoa, Charlotte. I reined myself in. Who was I to jump to conclusions? Except I did want a close-up and personal look at the papers she had hidden. ASAP.

Georgia dabbed her nose. “Why are you here?”

To snoop was probably not the best answer. Neither was I’m the town’s appointed savior, didn’t you hear?

“To check in on you.” I stared at her coffee cup. “Want a refill?”

She sneezed again and quickly blew her nose. “No, that’s okay.” She sounded whiny and even more miserable than when we had first met, but why wouldn’t she? Her boss had died. She had to be devastated. Unless, of course, she killed the boss.

“My treat,” I said. “Drinking plenty of liquids while you’re sick is important.”

She offered a weak smile. “Okay, sure. It’s orange oolong tea.”

I set my scarf and gloves on the desk, hustled downstairs, and returned with two teas and six packets of honey. Georgia looked like she could use extra sweetness in her life. I handed her the goods and settled on a hardback chair with my cup of tea. Steam rose through the tiny sipping hole and glazed my face with moisture.

“So how are you doing?” I asked.

“Horrible. All the journalists calling. All the police questions.” She sipped her tea and let out a teensy hum of enjoyment.

I allowed a comfortable silence to settle between us as if we were girlfriends sharing a cuppa. After a long moment, I said, “I didn’t know Kaitlyn well, but people say she was a wonderful woman.”

Georgia hesitated. She glanced at the commemorative Do-Gooder photograph and back at me. “She gave her all to everything.”

“My grandmother adored her.”

“Kaitlyn spoke highly of your grandmother, too.”

I gazed through the glass-top desk, but I couldn’t get a clear view of the briefcase below. Georgia’s slouch ankle boots, which were as saggy as a Shar-Pei’s skin, blocked my line of sight. I craned my head to spy beyond the leather, but I couldn’t make out the words on the file folder. “How long had you known Kaitlyn?”

“A long time.”

Again she had hesitated. What was up with that?

“Tell me about you.” I set my cup of tea on the desk, rose a tad from my chair, and overemphasized tucking the tail of my blazer under my rear. While I did, I scooched my chair an inch to the left so I could get a better angle on the file folder. Squinting, I could read the word Plachette on the tab. There were two more words but I couldn’t make them out. If only I had Supergirl’s vision. “When did you first start working for Clydesdale Enterprises?”

“Five years ago.”

“When did you become CFO?”

“Right away.”

“You can’t be much older than thirty.”

She blushed. “Actually, I’m thirty-eight.”

“No way.” I scooched some more. She had to be thinking I had ants in my pants, but I didn’t care. I had no shame. “I want the name of the skin products you use.”

She bit back a hint of a smile, reminding me of somebody, but I couldn’t put my finger on whom.

I eyed the file folder tab again. Plachette: Georgia … something. I needed to stare, but she would catch me if I did. I reached for my cup of tea and accidentally knocked my gloves and scarf to the floor. “Clumsy me,” I said. As my fingers grazed the cashmere, I got a clear view of the file folder tab. Plachette: Georgia Clydesdale.

Color me stupid. That was why she looked familiar. That was why she had hesitated when I had asked how long she had known Kaitlyn. She was Kaitlyn’s daughter.

Snagging my things, I returned to a sitting position and studied Georgia. She had Kaitlyn’s eyes and the same haughty cheekbones, but she was at least ten inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter. And her dark curly hair was a stark contrast to Kaitlyn’s blonde straight coif. Did she dye and perm it?

“What’s wrong?” Georgia said. “You’re staring at me.”

“You’re Kaitlyn Clydesdale’s daughter.”

“I—” She pursed her lips.

“Why keep it a secret?”

Georgia squirmed.

“Because she didn’t want people to know how old she was, right?” I said. “She wanted people to think she was in her fifties, and if they found out you were thirty-eight—”

“You’re wrong. She feared she’d be accused of nepotism.”

I gaped. “That doesn’t make sense. She owned the company; she set the rules.”

Georgia examined her chewed-to-the-nub fingernails. “She didn’t think her associates would welcome the idea that they had to report numbers to her daughter. She—” Georgia sneezed and the shawl fell off her shoulders, revealing a skintight plunging neckline black dress. I had seen the same dress on a mannequin in the Under Wraps display window. How dare Sylvie convince the poor girl that it looked appropriate for mourning.

“Did you tell Chief Urso you were her daughter?”

“I’ve answered all his questions.”

But what if Urso hadn’t asked the right questions? I mused. He was a good cop, but a hard-hitting DA, he wasn’t.

“Did he ask if you were Kaitlyn’s daughter?”

“He didn’t ask, but I did offer.” She sat taller. “Satisfied?”

Why hadn’t Urso told me? Because I wasn’t one of his deputies. Because I had no business whatsoever investigating. Except Rebecca had pleaded, and I had promised. I never reneged on a promise.

I glanced at the briefcase again. Could there be a lucrative will inside that would give Georgia sole proprietorship of the company? That would be a strong motive to kill her mother. How could I get a peek?

“I have a solid alibi,” Georgia offered.

She had said the same thing at Fromagerie Bessette. Why did she feel the need to reiterate it? Perhaps guilt was rearing its mighty head.

“I was at the pub playing darts until closing. Plenty of people saw me.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”

Georgia pulled the shawl back over her shoulders. “My mother and I didn’t get along at times.”

“Most mothers and daughters don’t.” I’d had plenty of altercations with Grandmère during my teens and early twenties. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight I started to realize she was smarter than I had given her credit for.

“She could ruffle feathers with the best of them,” Georgia added.

“I’ll bet she could.” I recalled Sylvie’s tirade about Georgia lambasting Kaitlyn. “Did you like your mother?”

“Like her?” Georgia’s chin quivered. “Of course, I did. I loved her.”

“You were heard telling customers at Under Wraps that your mother wasn’t a nice woman.”

Her chin stopped trembling. “That’s not what I said.” Her voice took on that imperious tone that I had heard from Kaitlyn. “Who told you that?” Her nostrils flared like a bull’s. “What I said was that she wasn’t nice to employees.”

“Meaning you.”

“Meaning Chip Cooper, Oscar Carson, that hack developer she found in Columbus, and a ton of others.”

I tapped the arm of my chair, unable to find a nice way to raise the next question. “Was she nice to her lover?”

“Sure, why not? Whoever the heck he might be.”

“You don’t know?”

“No clue. Isn’t that the beauty of having a lover—secrecy? Look, my mother kept a tight rein on everybody. She—” Georgia nipped her upper lip with a tooth, as if trying to curb herself from saying anything more. She glanced at the door. Did she wish she could flee? She fingered her curls. I could see her mind whirring behind her deep brown eyes. “If you ask me, that Barton Burrell is the prime suspect.”

“Why?”

“He wanted out of his contract, and now, with my mother dead, the contract is null and void. There was a clause in the contract that if something happened to my mother, the deal was canceled.”

* * *

When I returned to The Cheese Shop, Rebecca was nowhere to be found. Matthew said she was worried because she hadn’t heard from Ipo after he had left with Urso. She asked for a break to check on him. An hour later, even though she hadn’t returned, we started our cheese and wine-tasting class.

Members of the class spilled out of the annex into The Cheese Shop. I had known we were going to have a crowd, but word of mouth had doubled the attendance. The hum of excitement was intoxicating.

I stood near the bar in the annex and held up one of the wooden platters that I had arranged with cheese and fruit. “Don’t worry. Everyone will get to taste.” Individuals beyond the archway popped up, trying to peep over the head of the person in front. “If you don’t have a note card and pencil, wave your hand. Tyanne will come around.”

Luckily, Tyanne had arrived early to work. She said she was so excited about the upcoming opening of Le Petit Fromagerie that she couldn’t sit at home. She brandished a pack of cards overhead.

“I’ve got champagne.” Matthew moved from person to person, passing out shots of a luscious Schramsberg champagne from Napa Valley. Champagne was a fail-safe wine selection with cheese, he said. The flavor never intruded.

“On this platter,” I went on, “we have Brie and Camembert from America, and their French counterparts.” I twisted the platter in my hands. “Notice the mounds of winter red and green grapes. See how they provide a nice contrast to the white-rinded cheeses.” The students weren’t simply tasting cheese. They were trying to learn how to create a lovely presentation. “Now, in case you didn’t know, cheeses made with unpasteurized—otherwise known as raw—milk cannot be sold in the United States unless they have been aged for at least sixty days.”

I heard a chorus of: “I didn’t know that.”

“Why?” Tyanne asked, as I had prompted her to do during the hour before the class began.

“Because bacteria might grow. However, there are cheese lovers worldwide who might put up a stink if all cheeses were pasteurized.”

“Moi, for one,” Pépère said as he forged through the crowd with a basket of saltwater crackers. “Pasteurization takes away the full flavor of the cheese.”

As customers tasted, I heard arguments start up. A couple of people loved the French Brie. A few others preferred the American one.

“Please, folks,” I said. “The enjoyment of one cheese over another doesn’t mean someone is wrong. It’s all a matter of taste. Now, if you’ll also pay attention to how I added nuts and scoops of honey and brown sugar to the platter. Why do you think I—?”

“Charlotte!” Rebecca’s voice cut through the murmurs. She wedged between patrons, her face panic-stricken.

I set the platter down and hurried to her. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Ipo.”

“Is he hurt?”

She shook her head and placed a hand to her chest, gasping for breath. “His instruments. Those”—she snapped her fingers—“what do you call them?”

“Pu’ili sticks.”

“They’re missing.”

“Missing?”

“As in gone.”

I raised a reproachful eyebrow.

“Sorry,” she said. “I know you know what missing means, I’m just so upset. And Chief Urso”—she hiccupped and gripped my wrists—“Urso arrested Ipo. I tried to tell the chief that Barton Burrell might have taken the pu’ili sticks, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”