Lentil Death Do Us Part by Hillary Avis

Author:Hillary Avis [Avis, Hillary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: women sleuth, traditional mystery, cooking fiction, culinary mystery, cozy mystery, mystery
Publisher: Hilyard Press
Published: 2019-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Milo frowned at Lucien. “So if Bernard wanted to be made into paint, why hide it? Why not publicize it as part of something that makes the Peregrine collection special?”

Special is one word for it. Just plain creepy is the other!

Lucien looked up at Ryan pleadingly. “Well, like you mentioned—mummy brown is very desirable. If word got out, museums and conservators from all over the world would be harassing me to share the supply.”

Ryan’s face was unsympathetic. “I imagine you wanted to take your mummia with you if you ever left the museum, too. Keeping me out of the loop meant the mummy brown was all yours.”

Lucien hung his head guiltily. “I’d have enough pigment from Bernard to last me twenty years—the rest of my career—if I didn’t have to share. But then you found the mummy and I only had his foot left. And when Bella’s body was found in the crypt—” he broke off, unable to continue.

“You hid the foot so it wouldn’t be confiscated.” Ryan finished.

“And so people wouldn’t think you killed her,” Bethany added. Ryan looked at her strangely. “What? That’s the first thing I thought. I mean, whoever opened the crypt to get Bernard out is probably the person who put Bella in.”

“No! No!” Lucien protested. “I had nothing to do with that. I mean, yes, I took Bernard out of the coffin—he had it made with a special trap door in the end so it’d be easy for me to do it alone—but I left it empty, I swear! Someone else put her in there.”

Milo raised his eyebrows skeptically. “So someone came later and opened up the crypt, put Bella inside, and didn’t notice that Bernard was missing?”

“Don’t ask me—I wasn’t there.” Lucien gave a small shrug. “The last time I saw Bella, she was very alive. I drove her to the airport that night, actually. She was headed to the convent in Spain, totally devastated. I think she cried the whole way to the airport. When I got back to the estate, all the lights were out, so I assumed Simon was in bed. I went to the chapel, loaded Bernard into a wheelbarrow—that was a task, let me tell you—and took him to the basement in the main house. I never went back inside the chapel until today, and I have no idea when Bella came back from Europe, either.”

“I wonder why she came back,” Bethany said thoughtfully.

Lucien licked his lips, his eyes darting between them. “Well. You didn’t hear it from me, but Bella had a very...intimate friendship with Ernesto. Maybe she came back to see him.”

“The estate manager?” Milo asked. Lucien nodded. “Were they having an affair?”

“Who can say? I just noticed that they enjoyed each other’s company. They spent every afternoon together in the gardens. I could see them from my studio,” he explained hurriedly. “I wasn’t paying special attention.”

“You need to tell the police all this,” Bethany said. “They need to know how close Ernesto and Bella were.

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