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Chapter Twenty-Five

The Toss of a Coin

C hai tea and caramel popcorn.

“Actually, you don’t need the word tea when you say ‘chai,’” Harpreet explained. “ Chai means ‘tea.’”

“Does it?” said Bea. “Oh, how interesting. I did not know that.”

Chai and caramel popcorn. It had been a long day, and that night Harpreet, Bea, and Miranda gathered on the comfy couch in Bea’s living room for a Pastor Fran Friday of their own.

Ned was working late, Andrew was sorting through the original statements he’d gathered, looking for further discrepancies in Inez Fonio’s testimony, and Miranda had offered to make—

“But chai goes so much better with popcorn than lemonade does!” Bea had said, cutting off that avenue as quickly as she could. “Everyone says so. It’s practically a motto: Chai with popcorn, instead of lemonade . I believe it was Julia Child who said that.”

Miranda was too exhausted to argue. Inez was in custody, the machinations of all three murders had been resolved, and Miranda was preparing to once again watch her younger self karate-kick guns out of villains’ hands.

On her outing Inez Fonio as the killer, Bea had said, “I’m so proud of you! Pastor Fran solves another case! Sorry—I mean, Miranda Abbott solves another case. I get the two of you confused. I’m so sorry.”

You and me both, Bea.

“How did you untie such a tangled knot?” Harpreet wanted to know. “It must have been like attempting to remove a double-stitched hem from a rayon-polyester blend without pulling the fabric.”

She often spoke in such terms, just as Owen McCune put everything in automotive terms and Miranda in references to fame and the degrees thereof.

“In the end, each came down to the smallest of details,” said Miranda. “A toothpick gave away the first murder, the ‘artfully’ scattered pieces of a fallen clock gave away the second, and a tube of missing wax gave away the third.”

A silence passed after Miranda’s last comment. The wax had been filched from Fairfax DePoy’s signet sealing set, and by tacit agreement they were avoiding speaking about the late Mr. DePoy (aka “Frankie from New Jersey”) in order not to further upset Harpreet.

“It was your peach cobbler that did it, Bea. The final piece of the puzzle. Even when he sneaked upstairs to ‘canoodle’ with Inez—as Edgar puts it—Owen couldn’t help but bring a plate of your cobbler up with him. I imagine he had to gobble it down between suction-cup kisses. It was that good.”

“Thank you, dear.”

“She seemed a troubled soul,” said Harpreet.

“Inez had been mocked by the group, true, and that may have been part of it. But who knows what murky depths churn in the hidden heart of a murderer?” Was she quoting Pastor Fran?

Possibly. “Inez Fonio was fascinated with ropes and pulleys, which may have inspired the lighthouse noose. She lied about her alibi, and once her DNA is confirmed on the murder weapon, it will tell us she also wielded the speargun.”

“Why hide it in her own room?” asked Harpreet.

“I was puzzled by that, too, but then I realized that the police had already searched the bedrooms at the inn, including hers. Officer Holly is commendably thorough; she would certainly have looked under the armoire; in fact, she insists she did. Which means the weapon was placed there after last night’s murders.

Inez must have stowed it outside, then brought it in after the police left.

Perhaps she was planning to use it again. ”

“On who?”

“Penny, most likely. That was Cephus’s prediction, though it could easily have been Ray Valentine who was targeted next. Picking them off one by one—revenge for how they treated her, and removing the competition as well.”

“You prevented a further murder!” said Bea. She was going through her library of VHS tapes, trying to find one suitable for their tired but triumphant mood. She stopped. Turned. “But why would Owen lie like that? He knew Inez wasn’t with him at the time Kane was murdered.”

“Love makes you do crazy things,” said Harpreet. “I once got a perm.”

They nodded thoughtfully.

“I wouldn’t do that now, of course,” Harpreet hastened to add. “I was young and rebellious.”

Bea pushed the selected tape into the deck, and on a warble of VHS tracking it began: “Our Lady, who arts on the mean streets of Crime City... Tonight’s episode: ‘The Bomb in the Birthday Cake’!” (again, sort of gave away the ending).

This episode once again featured Pastor Fran’s archrival L?uren Morocco.

“With the female characters on the show, they always gave me rivals,” Miranda complained, “never allies. I was always being pitted against another female sleuth, or a fashion magnate, or a ruthless member of a competing church congregation. She went on to greater things, though, that actress, the one playing Morocco in this episode.”

“She was Mark Hamill’s daughter in one show and later played his wife—or was it his mother?—on a movie of the week,” said Bea.

I once had a home in the Hollywood Hills, thought Miranda. Now I’m staying in the attic of a small B he just shuffles about, being grumpy.”

“Very well written, though,” said Harpreet. “Those novels. Ms. Fenland has real talent.”

Miranda agreed. “It’s not like she’s writing comedic cozies or anything.”

“God forbid!”

They laughed.

Harpreet disagreed with Bea when it came to Hollywood and Miranda.

“I say, stay where the heart is. When we first moved here from Seattle, it was a great cultural shock. Happy Rock was so much quieter. But we each wanted to have our own shop. Tanvir’s dad had been a carpenter back in Peshawar.

My mother was a seamstress of great renown.

We opened our businesses right across the street from each other.

Tanvir says it’s so he can keep an eye on me, but really it’s the opposite. ”

They laughed again.

Tanvir’s Hardwares he says she is a very capable young woman—that’s his finest compliment, by the way—but I know he worries.

It’s the people we worry about who we love most.”

And where did that leave Miranda Abbott?

“Bea, you grew up here. You never thought of leaving?”

She was genuinely puzzled by the question.

“My Bob and Doc Meadows—and Ned, of course—we grew up together. Owen’s dad owned the garage, as did his father before him, although Owen is quite a bit younger than the rest of us, so we didn’t know him that well when we were kids.

Atticus came much later, in high school.

From Garibaldi,” she said. “Not that we hold that against him! We’re not like that.

” (Garibaldi being next town along the bay.) “Here in Happy Rock, we are always welcoming, never judgmental. Not like those people in Garibaldi, who think they’re so hot. ”

“Oh, yes,” said Harpreet. “They’re terrible. I went to the DMV, and the lady behind the counter made a little comment, said, ‘Oh, right. The town with the manure store.’”

Bea pshawed this. “They’re just jealous of our hotel and our Opera House and our—” She stopped herself. Happy Rock was also locally famous for Hiram Henry House, home of the town’s Better B&B.

“The B stands for Better View, by the way,” said Miranda.

“It’s a reference to the lighthouse. I confronted Geri about the name.

She was genuinely hurt, said no, it was not a comment on your business, Bea, that you weren’t rivals, you were fellow innkeepers.

They even asked if they might get your recipe for peach cobbler, they enjoyed it so much. ”

“How lovely,” said Bea. “How very lovely.” But then added, “Over my dead body.”

On the TV screen, Pastor Fran was defusing another bomb. The blue wire or the red? Did it really matter? Whichever one she snipped was always the right one.

“You’ve had such a large life,” said Harpreet, with an envious sigh.

“Pastor Fran had a large life. I just tagged along for the ride.”

* * *

T HE D UCHESS H OTEL might boast a good view, and Hiram Henry House a better view—but the best by far was the view from the Cozy Café, with its panorama of the harbor and the lighthouse at the far end. Sailboats and seaplanes and the dark forests beyond.

Mabel Greene tossed the plate down in front of Ned Buckley with a clatter.

Since her days with the ACLU’s Anti-War Coalition, Mabel had never warmed to officers of the law, something about which Ned remained cheerfully oblivious.

(Meanwhile Myrtle, the other half of Mabel and Myrtle, had never left Happy Rock and was mildly ambivalent regarding officers of the law. She liked Ned, though.)