Chapter 11
Eleven
I went all in on the magnolia theme for Sunday brunch. It seemed a little excessive now given the way the gala event panned out, but I’d already done most of the leg work.
Besides, nothing loosens tongues quite like mimosas.
What I couldn’t decide was if Evelyn had been killed by Hyacinth Maxwell, one of my guests, someone wholly unrelated to galas and The Society, or by a serial killer.
The serial killer was my least favorite theory. It lacked personality.
While I couldn’t exactly investigate someone outside of Evelyn’s Society connections, I could cozy up to Hyacinth next week when my guests were gone. Today was really the only opportunity to put the screws to the Midnight House guests. They were all scheduled to depart on Monday.
I'd cut a dozen magnolia blossoms from the tree out back before the heat could brown their edges, floated three of them in a shallow bowl at the center of the dining room table, and tucked the rest into water glasses down the length of it.
There were beignets dusted thick with powdered sugar, a pitcher of chicory coffee, a pitcher of mimosas, and a platter of eggs Sardou that had taken me forty-five minutes and two separate trips to the store because I'd forgotten the artichoke hearts the first time.
Eggs Sardou was basically a fancied up poached egg with a Hollandaise sauce on top and an artichoke bottom. Not an easy feat for me, the master of the microwave, but I was trying to improve my food offerings at the B&B and brunch was a good time to up my game.
"This is a lot of production," Reginald observed, easing into his chair with the newspaper tucked under one arm. “Looks quite delightful, Harper.”
"I like a theme," I said. “The plan with the magnolias was to harken back to what was supposed to have been a highly successful gala fundraiser Friday night. It seemed a shame to waste it all.”
"Somebody already died over a theme this week," Taylor said, reaching for the mimosas before he'd even sat down. "Feels a little on the nose, Harper."
"It's a brunch, Taylor. Not an omen."
"Everything's an omen right now." He poured himself a generous glass, then, after a beat of visible internal debate, poured a second one and slid it toward Allison, who accepted it without comment.
It was safe to say that Allison had struggled the most with the weekend’s events. Evelyn’s death. Was that empathy or guilt? Guilt because she’d been a party crasher or because she’d murdered Evelyn herself?
She knew how to research for her fiction works. Maybe she’d researched spring mechanisms.
Vivienne arrived last, camera already up, sweeping the table in one slow pan before she set it down and reached for a beignet. "Magnolias. Cute. Very on-brand for a haunted house."
"I'm going for Sunday wholesome," I said. "Séances are for Saturday night."
“That’s what we should have done,” Allison said, perking up. “We should have conducted a séance last night and asked Evelyn who killed her!”
“Poppycock,” was Taylor’s response.
I had to agree with Taylor on that one.
“I don’t think anyone should mess with the spiritual realm,” Vivienne said. “There are forces we don’t understand.”
I nodded.
Reginald made a sound of distress. "You have a skunk currently attempting to climb the buffet."
I turned around. Teddy had gotten one paw up onto the lower shelf of the sideboard and was eyeing the eggs Sardou with his nose twitching.
"Absolutely not," I told him. “Those took me way too long to make.”
He gave me a long, unbothered blink and climbed back down, choosing instead to station himself under my chair, which I recognized as a tactical retreat rather than a surrender.
I sat, poured my coffee, and got to work.
Casually.
You know. My strong suit. I could just envision Hollis rolling his eyes right now.
The trick was to let the questions arrive sideways, tucked in between the bubbly and the small talk, so nobody noticed they’d revealed too much until they were already halfway through answering.
Taylor made it easy. Taylor always made it easy, mostly because he had exactly zero filter. And he liked to drink.
"You seem chipper," I said, watching him demolish his third beignet.
"I got a call this morning." He said it around a mouthful of powdered sugar, which meant it landed more like I gah a cah dis mohnin, with a sprinkle of powdered sugar with each word.
He swallowed, took a fortifying gulp of mimosa, and tried again.
"The lab results came back on the bourbon.
On all of it. The batch that was poured at the gala, the reserve stock, the barrel samples they pulled from my truck.
Clean. Completely clean. No contamination, no additives, nothing but bourbon being exactly as much bourbon as it's supposed to be.
So no one can blame me for a ding dang thing that happened at that gala. "
“You were worried about that?” Vivienne asked. “What were you worried about exactly?”
“Poison! All that talk about mint leaves and foaming at the mouth and whatnot, had to make sure it was all squeaky clean. My bourbon is just damn good bourbon.”
I wasn’t sure anyone had said anything about foaming at the mouth but Taylor did look genuinely relieved. Was that because he had just been worried about his business or because he thought he’d gotten away with murder?
"That's wonderful news," Allison said, and sounded like she meant it.
"It is wonderful news," Taylor agreed, with the fervor of a man who'd been carrying something heavy and had just set it down.
"Do you know what I've been picturing since Thursday?
Headlines. Lawsuits. Some poor intern at Afterlife Spirits fielding calls asking if our bourbon is, quote, 'the poison one. '”
“That seems rather hard to believe, doesn’t it?” Allison asked. “Poison is always referred to as a woman’s weapon.”
“Well, obviously,” Taylor said. “That was a woman’s hand, wasn’t it? But if my bourbon was used as a vehicle for some nut job’s poison, it’s guilt by association. I haven't slept a wink the last two nights."
Except maybe when he’d been passed out on the terrace at the gala.
"You've slept plenty," Reginald said, from behind his newspaper. "I've heard you snoring through two walls." He didn’t sound like he cared one more or the other. He was just stating facts.
“Snoring indicates restless sleep, Reginald. Tonight will be a whole different story.”
"I wouldn't know," Reginald said, and went back to his paper, though I noticed he didn't turn the page. “I’ve never snored. Good airflow.”
That was kind of an odd flex, but Reginald was slightly eccentric.
“Someone to look forward to tonight,” I said cheerfully, letting Taylor have his moment, because he'd earned it and because it was genuinely, uncomplicated good news that untangled one whole thread from the mess.
If it wasn't in the bourbon, it wasn't a mass poisoning, which meant whoever had wanted Evelyn dead had wanted her dead specifically. It also meant that no one had spiked her drink. All information I’d been pretty certain on already, but confirmation was appreciated.
Even if it came wrapped in Taylor doing what could only be described as a seated victory dance.
"So we can rule you out," Vivienne said, not looking up from buttering a beignet like that wasn't the most pointed sentence anyone had said all morning.
Also, who buttered a beignet? I felt all of my ancestors collectively groaning in disapproval.
Taylor's dance stopped. "Excuse me?"
"You. As a suspect. If the bourbon's clean, you've got no method. No obvious one, anyway." She shrugged. "Congratulations. You're boring."
"I have never in my life been called boring and had it feel like a compliment," Taylor said, "but today, Vivienne, today I will take it."
I refilled the coffee and let the table settle back into its rhythm, eggs and the low clatter of forks, and set my sights on Reginald, who had spent the entire exchange using his newspaper as a very thin fortress wall.
"You've been quiet this morning," I said, sliding the eggs Sardou toward him, because Aunt Odette always said a man with a full plate answered questions more honestly than a man with an empty one.
I didn't know if that was actually true or if she'd just liked feeding people, but I'd never found a reason to test the theory.
"I've been reading," he said, though the paper still hadn't turned a page.
"Anything interesting?"
"Nothing that concerns Belle Rêve, if that's what you're fishing for.
" He finally set the paper down, folded it into a neat, precise square, the same way he did everything, and looked at me with the patience of a man who found most conversations slightly beneath him but was too well-mannered to say so outright.
"You want to ask me about Evelyn. Go ahead.
I'd rather you ask me directly than watch you circle around it for another twenty minutes. "
Well. That took the wind out of my sideways-question strategy entirely.
"Fine," I said. "Tell me about the Bellamy-Fitch restoration,” I shot off.
"There's nothing to tell that I haven't already told you.
Evelyn insisted on rebuilding a portico to match a photograph that was almost certainly staged.
I told her so. She overruled me, publicly, in front of a board of people who trusted her judgment over mine because she'd been doing this longer and had a bigger name attached to it.
" He said it flatly, without heat. "It's not a mystery, Harper.
It's a professional disagreement. Architects and clients disagree constantly.
Most of them don't end up dead over it."
I should hope not. "Most disagreements don't get you humiliated in front of a historical board, either."