“Maybe you should have been a marriage counselor,” said Michele.
“I don’t think so,” said the model with a laugh. “I don’t like lost causes!”
They all laughed at that, even though it wasn’t all that funny. Michele thought about her own boyfriend, and how he’d proposed to her several times already. Only last week he brought up the subject again. But she’d married once, to Dean, and it had ended in tragedy. So she didn’t want to do it again. A silly superstition, maybe, but she didn’t want anything to happen to Chris. You just never knew.
“Okay, so what do I do with this?” she asked, holding up the veal.
“You bake it,” said Ona. “Simple.”
“Simple for you, maybe,” said Michele, frowning darkly at the meat. “Maybe I could put it in the microwave?”
“Oh, my God!” said Ona. “Are you trying to poison us? Here, give it to me.”
And as Michele watched the other ladies busily preparing dinner, she happily took a sip from her Chardonnay.“Anything else I can do?” she asked finally.
“You can bring us some of that,” said Marge, indicating the glass.
“I can do that,” she said. She might not be a great cook, but she could pour a mean glass of white wine. And so soon the others had all been supplied with the same nectar of the gods that was in her own glass, and the lively conversation became even livelier. And when Perlita joined them, and started telling them the story of how she found out that her husband was having an affair, Marge asked if she could write her story. It was exactly the kind of thing Kitty Velvet would like.
CHAPTER 39
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Bereng?ria Morat? had finally decided to talk. A perspicacious cop had found a USB stick wrapped in a plastic freezer bag concealed at the bottom of a flower pot. On the USB stick they’d found Isobel Droba’s manuscript. Confronted with this evidence, the housekeeper cracked, and as Chase sat in front of her, the words rolled from her tongue with the same fervor as her erstwhile reticence.
Dooley had taken up position next to Odelia, and awaited further developments with as much eager anticipation as the detective himself.
“How did you know about the manuscript?” Chase wanted to know.
“I hear sisters talk,” said the housekeeper in her trademark clipped tones. “Loud words—big fight. Michele want no book. Isobel say she want book. I’m curious. So I sneak into Isobel room when she out and copy book on stick. I hurry. I read book and see lots of secrets.”
“And so you decided to make some money by blackmailing people.”
“Not blackmail. I protect secrets. They pay me money for protection.”
“One other thing. Did you write these notes yourself?” he asked, placing the three notes on the desk. “Your English in these notes is excellent.”
The housekeeper beamed at what she considered a compliment.“I look up Google Translate. Good English, yes? I copy words from phone. Good English?”
“Good English, yes,” Chase grunted. “Okay, so you took the book and you blackmailed Ona Konpacka. What else?”
“What else what? Nothing else. I tell you all what else, Mister Policeman!”
“Okay, so what happened on the night of Isobel’s murder? Did you go into her room again? Did she catch you this time?”
“I don’t go into room again. Only go into room one time.” She thought for a moment. “I want go to room again. Book not finished. Book not ready. Only part of book on computer. I want rest of book, but Isobel not leave room so no chance.”
“How do you know you only had part of the book?”
“Book say part one, part two, part three, part four. Ten parts. Only four parts on stick.” She thunked her head. “Stupid me. I hurry, and now only four parts of book.”
“So you missed a trick,” said Chase, leaning back.
“I miss six parts of book,” said Bereng?ria, showing us she could count as well as blackmail people. She held up six fingers. “Six parts. Silly me.”
“Okay, so here’s what I think happened,” said Chase. “You discovered that you’d only downloaded a part of the manuscript, so you wanted the rest also. You wanted the entire book, so you could blackmail a lot more people. You knew you had gold in your hands, only you wanted more gold—youwanted all the gold.”
“I want all gold, yes,” Bereng?ria confirmed. “I like gold.”
“So you went back into Isobel’s room.”
“I no go back. Isobel in room.”
“She was, but you were hoping she wasn’t.”
The woman frowned.“She was in room.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t know that. You wanted the rest of that book. Youneeded the rest of that book. And so you took a chance. You took a risk. You went back to download the final parts, only this time Isobel caught you red-handed.”
Bereng?ria held up her hands. “Hands not red. Hands pink.”
“Isobel caught you in the act,” Chase went on doggedly.
“Act? What act?”