The Marsh Madness by Victoria Abbott Page B

that the “alerts” would definitely look fishy. They’d find my new alerts in a minute if they checked my phone, of course. Mental note: Clear history. Even if we’d had good reasons to check out Chadwick.
    “Very sad?” Castellano said, smiling slightly.
    I winced. “Well, not devastating. I only met him once. We had a meal with him in his home yesterday and he seemed like a—well, you don’t expect something like that, do you?”
    She shrugged as if she wouldn’t be surprised if people dropped dead after meeting with me.
    “Hmm, yes, especially immediately after you met with him.”
    It was hard to miss the insinuation in her voice.
    “Wait. Immediately? How is that possible?”
    “In fact, it was right after you were out of sight of Summerlea. Would you like to tell me about your return trip here?”
    I blinked.
    “But it couldn’t have been right after.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He wasn’t alone in the house. The others were still there when we left.”
    “What others?”
    “Miss Troy and the butler, Thomas.”
    “Ah yes. Miss Van Alst tells the same story.”
    “It’s not a story. It’s what happened.”
    “You left with Miss Van Alst and Mr. Kelly?”
    “No. I was behind the Cadillac with Vera and Unc, um, Mr. Kelly. When they drove away, I looked back. Both cars were still there. Thomas, the butler, saw us leave. He’ll be able to confirm that we were on our way and Mr. Kauffman was still inside. Alive, it goes without saying. We would hardly have left if something had happened to him.”
    “Ah yes, the butler,” she said with a tight little smile.
    “Yes, that’s correct.”
    “Uh-huh. And you say this butler was there?”
    “I don’t ‘say’ it. He was. He served luncheon and generally did things you might expect a butler to do. And more, I think. Not that I’m familiar with butlers outside of television.”
    “You mentioned the cars.”
    “Yes.”
    “Miss Van Alst didn’t mention cars.”
    “She wouldn’t. She couldn’t care less about cars. She only cares about books, really.”
    “So I understand. What cars were there?”
    “A silver Aston Martin. Totally glamorous, in an early James Bond kind of way. I assumed it was Mr. Kauffman’s. You don’t see them every day. And there was also an older Mercedes-Benz, red, that I figured belonged to his assistant, Miss Troy.”
    “You did, did you?”
    She asked her questions with a knowing half smile, as though she’d caught you in a lie and you knew she’d caught you and now she was enjoying watching you squirm.
    I didn’t plan to squirm, because I hadn’t been caught in a lie.
    “I didn’t think the car was the butler’s, but that was only an assumption.”
    Again with the half smile. “So, you and Miss Van Alst and, um, let’s see, Kevin Kelly, met with Chadwick yesterday?”
    “That’s right.”
    “And do you mind telling me how that came about?”
    I blinked. “Chadwick Kauffman asked us, well, he invited Miss Van Alst, to join him for lunch at Summerlea.”
    “Did he?”
    I wasn’t sure what she meant by that tone. “Yes. He did. Okay, to be precise, his assistant asked.”
    “Did she?”
    “Yes,” I said, trying to keep irritation out of my voice. The questioning of everything could drive a person to shout. And that would be very bad. “Miss Lisa Troy called and made the arrangements to meet with Miss Van Alst. Miss Van Alst hates driving, so she insisted that Mr. Kelly drive her. And she asked that I come along too. So the luncheon invitation was expanded to include us.”
    Close enough.
    She raised an eyebrow.
    I added, “You’ve met Vera Van Alst. She gets what shewants by sheer force of will.” As the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to claw them back in. Had Vera mentioned the transaction with the Ngaio Marsh books? This is why they question people separately. The old divide-and-conquer strategy.
    She said, “And then what happened when you arrived after this ‘invitation’?”
    I