Chapter Thirteen
With the first taste of homemade pasta sauce, of crisp-crusted garlic bread paired with a perfect caprese salad, Willow started to feel human again.
The wine probably helped; Diana kept innocently topping off everyone’s glasses, and Willow could not be sure how much she was drinking.
Finn stayed at Willow’s side; she couldn’t be sure if it was genuine affection or the hope that a bit of pasta or fresh mozzarella might fall to the floor, but she appreciated him nonetheless.
Conversation at dinner remained light and inconsequential, for which Willow was grateful.
When everyone had finished eating, they moved back into the main room of the cabin: Willow curled up on the overstuffed chair in the corner with Finn’s head resting on her thigh, Catherine perched in the window seat beside the big bow window, and Diana and Mac sat together on the longer couch.
Rina settled into Sue’s ancient glider rocker. Seeing a stranger—more or less—in Sue’s favorite seat caused an ugly little twinge in Willow’s gut, but she forced herself to let it go.
Someone passed around a plate of leftover mini pastries and cookies from the reception. The women were quiet for a time, listening to the sea outside and the wind in the pines. Mac was the first to speak. “So, Willow … what happened? Are you okay to talk about it?”
Rina interrupted gently, “Mac, no. She’s had a horrific day; she doesn’t need to go through it all—”
“It’s okay,” Willow said quietly as Finn’s tail thumped on the cushion beside her, and he looked up encouragingly. “I think I need to.”
Willow told them the story. Most of it. She left out the broken cane, she said nothing of the shawl, and she absolutely remained silent about the thick sense of presence in the house, of dozens of invisible eyes watching as she fled.
When she finished, Diana frowned. “Crime tape, you said?”
Catherine murmured, “Told you so.”
Mac turned to Willow. “Catherine was convinced, based on what we saw earlier and what Nick told us, that Talbot had been poisoned. We all told her she was nuts.”
“I don’t think she’s nuts,” Willow said soberly. It made a frightening kind of sense. Geralt had seemed fine earlier in the day, but from start to finish of the reception, he had gone from bad to worse.
Rina was staring down at her own fingers, which were twisted in her lap. Diana said, “Rina thinks it was her fault from screaming at him.”
Rina’s lips pursed in conflicted misery. “He’s horrible. He deserved it. But I didn’t want to give him heart failure or anything.”
Mac rolled her eyes. “It would be proof he has a heart, something I’m not sure any of us are fully convinced of. What?” she asked indignantly when they all shot her a look. “You’re all thinking it too.”
Willow’s thoughts tangled in confusion. Should she tell them about what she overheard in the church, about the man in the vestibule and what he’d said about Sue?
Geralt had cautioned her against trusting too easily, and now he was in the hospital, barely alive.
And he wasn’t the only one who threatened Geralt today, her mind whispered, remembering the murderous look on Rina’s face earlier. Rina had loved Sue.
Oh God, she thought. What if Geralt had been involved, in some way, in Sue’s death? And Rina had found out?
No. Willow mentally shook her head. I can’t believe Rina would go that far, no matter how much she hated him. Sue had loved Rina. That automatically put her in the plus column for Willow.
Still, she thought, best not say anything. Not just yet.
“They wouldn’t put police tape up if they thought it was a heart attack,” Catherine insisted. “I’m betting they think he was poisoned. Or at least that it’s a possibility. We all saw him at the reception—he didn’t look good.”
Mac nodded and snagged another almond cookie. “Right—but we all figured the combination of age and rage, on top of a weak heart and too much heavy food, finally got the better of him.”
Rina sighed. “The rage is on me. It was inevitable. Messing with me is one of Talbot’s favorite pastimes. And the timing was … bad.”
Diana reached over and patted Rina’s hand.
“It’s all bad. You lost your fiancée, your best friend, your business partner, and the love of your life.
Her memorial was today. You have every right to be way more of a wreck than you are.
And I’m sorry I couldn’t insulate you from his asshattery. Today should have been about Sue.”
Rina squeezed her hand. “I know. And thank you. I still can’t quite believe she’s gone.
” She looked around at them, a self-deprecating half smile on her face.
“Do you know, I haven’t even begun to clear out her things?
Everything in the inn is as if she were still around.
The book she was reading on the nightstand, her hairbrush on the vanity, her jacket in the hall closet where I see it every time I open the door—for all I know, her keys are still right there in the pocket where she always forgot them.
I just can’t bring myself…” She trailed off.
“So yes, I’m a little bit of a wreck, and I guess I am entitled.
But my God, that horrible man.” She shook her head.
“I was in charge of the lemonade for a while, and he was drinking a lot of it. The guy was seriously thirsty,” Catherine said.
“I saw some of the other men slip him God knows how many empanadas during the party,” Mac put in, “and those are basically not exactly low on the fat-and-cholesterol scale.”
“No criticism of my abuela’s empanadas will be tolerated,” Diana said.
“Not a criticism, Mom, you know that,” Mac said. “They’re amazing. But he probably shouldn’t have been eating them.” She grinned. “I, on the other hand, am young and skinny and athletic, so I would be happy to remove temptation from anyone else and eat the leftovers.”
“It wasn’t only food, though,” Willow said, cautiously entering the conversation, keeping her voice as normal as she could.
“A lot of the men were passing flasks around, spiking each other’s lemonades like it was a frat party.
” She took a bite of her brownie. “A few women too. Not to change the subject, but in the name of all that’s holy, who made these? ”
Rina’s smile radiated satisfied superiority. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe, taught to me when I was nine. Diana may be a magician in the bakery, but these are still the best brownies anywhere, period. You’re welcome.”
“Didn’t know brownies were an Italian thing,” Mac said idly, snagging one for herself.
“My nonna grew up in Brooklyn, so there,” Rina said smugly.
The ability to make perfect brownies doesn’t necessarily eliminate her from a suspect list, Willow thought, but it comes close.
“Thank you for the pastry praise,” Diana said, “but you’re right; I yield the brownie baking championship title to you and your grandmother.
” She frowned. “Thing is, the list of people who might want Talbot dead is … not short,” she said.
“The man is a homophobic, misogynistic lowlife who owns half the town and has loaned money to the other half, and those were his legal business proceedings.”
“Like who?” Willow asked.
“Well, most of the island businesses and merchants, for one thing,” Diana said.
“They—we—make nearly all their annual income in summer, but the bills come all year. He’s raised the rent twice on most of the village businesses, and he’s made no secret of the fact that he wants to drive the established businesses out and bring in his own corporate cronies.
Joe and Frank’s bakery, the Dolphin’s Tale bookshop, Annie’s ice cream place—even old Bill at the Dockside is feeling the squeeze. ”
“It goes further than the island.” Catherine pulled a tablet out of her purse and opened it. “I’ve been doing research on him—”
Mac laughed. “Hah—of course you were. You can take the librarian out of the library, but—”
“Oh, stuff it,” Catherine said good-naturedly.
She called up her notes on the screen. “On the business side of things, the man is ruthless. He made his millions in the textile industry, switched to Big Pharma, and eventually sat back and let his money make money. Naomi is his fourth wife—yes, fourth,” she said when the others’ eyes widened, “and he managed to pay no support or alimony to any of the first three after the divorces. There were lawsuits and settlement battles, and in each case, there was some investigator or smoking-gun witness to testify that the woman had been unfaithful, so none of them ever got a dime.”
“Jeez,” Mac muttered.
Catherine continued, “So there are a few ex-wives out there with reason to hate him, though I’m not sure they will give us much to work with.
Wife number one, Sylvia Talbot Olivera, went on to marry a professional soccer player; they moved to Brazil and seem to be set for life.
Wives number two and three also went on to get married and have kids with someone else: number two, Cheryl Talbot Turek, is a retired schoolteacher in Iowa; number three, Nina Talbot Chavez, died of cancer about fifteen years ago, leaving behind five children and seven grandchildren, presumably by her second husband, although…
” She clicked around a bit. “Her oldest son may have been born during the same calendar year as the divorce, so I guess there is some possible question about the timing. I would need to get into some deeper documents to know the actual dates and such, and I doubt he’d be interested in taking a paternity test.”
“If he knew he might be heir to this kind of fortune, I bet he might consider it.” Mac looked in Catherine’s direction, impressed. “You found all this … today?”