The Final Chapter: Traditional Cosy (A St. Ives Book Club Mystery 10) by Nadine Doolittle

Author:Nadine Doolittle [Doolittle, Nadine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gatineau Hills Publishing
Published: 2023-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

VERONICA MADE A sound that would have been classified as a grunt if it had come from anyone else but Veronica Wakefield-Brice.

Pearl’s future mother-in-law turned her attention to the beaming Elliot Marks.

“You have four more minutes. What else do you want to know?”

“Did any of Claudia Dixon’s guests stand out to you in any way? Don’t feel you have to hide your prejudices from or alter your perspective in order to be polite. I want to hear your unvarnished opinion. What were they like?”

“Is she going to write this all down?”

“If you will feel more comfortable, Miss Hansen can put her notebook away. Either way, whatever you tell us will be kept confidential.”

She drew herself up and glanced at the thin time piece on her wrist. “I thought there were far too many of Bernie Dixon’s clients and suppliers there. At times, it was as though I had wandered into a construction party. If a beer keg had been rolled out, I would not have been surprised. The talk was about concrete and supply chain issues and gravel. Then on the other side of the coin, we had the social-climbing parasites that Bernie catered to in order to get their business. On that side there were real estate agents, financial brokers and elderly ladies with property to sell.”

“Not me,” Nerys said, unconsciously reaching for a cookie before she stopped herself.

“Not you. I misspoke—there was only one elderly lady looking for a buyer for her house. I believe she approached Montgomery Davis, Donald Fenelon and Duncan Carmichael before giving up.”

Solly leaned forward. “Did you catch this woman’s name?”

“Eileen Woods,” Veronica answered promptly. “I remember because someone told me she was a model at one time with her sister and that her sister had committed suicide in the fall. It struck me as being in extremely poor taste to try and flog one’s family home at a Christmas party two months after the death of one’s sibling.”

“Extremely poor,” Nerys agreed. “Although it must have been a terrible time for her living in that house alone. Everyone expresses grief differently.”

“That is so often said and is so often untrue that I no longer correct it.” Veronica plucked a piece of lint from her skirt. “There are some who view grief as a license to be angry. In a small child, it is acceptable. In a woman approaching seventy, it is not.”

“Did Eileen Woods strike you as being angry?”

“She was trying not to be but the way she took after Donald Fenelon in front of the Christmas tree, she was unsuccessful. I was on the other side, admiring Claudia’s ornaments that she claimed she had flown in from Bulgaria. The tree was excessively large. Do you remember that, Solomon?”

“You said a tree of that size belonged in a lumber mill, not at a party. That it was large enough to house a family of owls.”

“What did you overhear?”

Elliot had leaned forward. His eyes narrowed and his body was taut. Pearl surreptitiously scribbled down her reply.

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