Fiona Grace - Crime in the Café

Suzy swirled too, rifle still in hand.

At the sight of it, the man in the suit barreled into Councilor Muir protectively.

“Suzy!” Lacey squealed. “Put the rifle down!”

“Oh!” Suzy said, her cheeks flaming red.

“It’s just an antique!” Lacey told the security man, who was still protectively huddling his arms around Councilor Muir.

Finally, a little hesitantly, he released her.

The councilwoman straightened out her suit and patted down her hair. “Thank you, Benson,” she said stiffly to the aide who’d been about to take a bullet for her. She looked embarrassed more than anything.

“Sorry, Joanie,” Suzy said. “For pointing a gun in your face.”

Joanie? Lacey thought. That was a very familiar way to address the woman. Did the two know one another on a personal level?

Councilor Muir said nothing. Her gaze flicked to Lacey. “Who’s this?”

“This is my friend Lacey,” Suzy said. “She’s going to decorate the B&B. Hopefully.”

Lacey stepped forward and proffered her hand to the councilor. She’d never actually seen her up close, just speaking from the town hall’s podium, or on the occasional flyer that was posted through the store’s letterbox. She was in her fifties, older than in her PR photo; the lines around her eyes gave her away. She looked tired and stressed, and didn’t take Lacey’s outstretched hand, since her arms were full cradling a thick manila envelope.

“Is that my business license?” Suzy squealed with excitement as she noticed it.

“Yes,” Councilor Muir said hurriedly, shoving it toward her. “I was just coming by to drop it off.”

“Joanie sorted this all out for me so quickly,” Suzy said to Lacey. “What’s the word? You expediated it?”

“Expedited,” one of the aides piped up, earning himself a sharp glare from Councilor Muir.

Lacey frowned. It was highly unusual for a councilor to be hand delivering business licenses. When Lacey had applied for her own, it had involved lots of online form-filling and sitting around in dingy council buildings waiting for the number on her ticket to be called, as if she were in the queue at the butcher’s. She wondered why Suzy would get the red carpet treatment. And why were they already on first-name terms?

“Do you two know each other from somewhere?” Lacey asked, venturing to find out what the deal was here.

Suzy chuckled. “Joan’s my aunt.”

“Ah,” Lacey said.

That made perfect sense. Councilor Muir had approved the rush job of switching a retirement home into a B&B because she had a family connection to Suzy. Carol had been right. There was a lot of nepotism at play here.

“Ex-aunt,” Councilor Muir corrected, defensively. “And not by blood. Suzy is my ex-husband’s niece. And that didn’t play any part in the decision to grant the license. It’s just about high time Wilfordshire got a decent-sized B&B. Tourism is going up year on year, and our current facilities just can’t keep up with demand.”

It was evident to Lacey that Councilor Muir was attempting to divert the conversation away from the obvious preferential treatment Suzy had been given. But it really wasn’t necessary. It didn’t change Lacey’s opinion of Suzy, since it wasn’t her fault she was well connected, and as far as Lacey was concerned, it showed good character that she was using her connections to do something rather than just rest on her laurels. If anyone came off looking bad, it was Councilor Muir herself, and not because she’d used her influential position to grant a huge favor to her ex-husband’s niece, but because she was being so shady and evasive about it. No wonder the Carols of Wilfordshire were so opposed to the eastern regeneration project!

The crimson-clad councilor was still spouting her excuses. “The town actually has enough demand for two B&Bs this size, especially when you factor in all the extra trade we’ll get from luring back the old shooting club.”

Lacey was immediately interested. She thought of Xavier’s note and his suggestion that her father came to Wilfordshire in the summers to shoot.

“The old shooting club?” she asked.

“Yes, the one up at Penrose Manor,” Councilor Muir explained, gesturing with her arm in a general westerly direction where the estate was nestled on the other side of the valley.

“There was a forest there once, right?” Suzy chimed in. “I heard Henry the Eighth had the hunting lodge built so he could come and hunt wild boar!”

“That’s right,” the councilor said with a businesslike nod. “But the forest was eventually cut down. As with many English estates, the nobles took up shooting game birds once guns were invented, and that turned into the industry as we know it now. These days breeders rear mallards, partridges, and pheasants just for shooting.”

“What about rabbits and pigeons?” Lacey offered, recalling the contents of Xavier’s letter.

“They can be shot all year round,” Councilor Muir confirmed. “The Wilfordshire shooting club taught amateurs during the off-season, and they practiced on pigeons and rabbits. Not exactly glamorous, but you have to start somewhere.”

Lacey let the information percolate in her mind. It corresponded so accurately with what Xavier had said in the letter, she couldn’t help but believe that her father really had come to Wilfordshire in the summers to shoot at Penrose Manor. Coupling that with the photo she’d seen of her father and Iris Archer, the former owner, and it seemed even more likely.

Was that why the gun had felt so familiar to her, because somewhere in the back of her mind she had memories she’d not been able to access?

“I never knew there was a hunting lodge at Penrose Manor,” she said. “When did the shooting club stop operating there?”

“About a decade ago,” Councilor Muir replied. She had a weary tone, like she would prefer not to be having this conversation. “They ceased operations because of …” She paused, evidently searching for the most diplomatic words. “…Financial mismanagement.”

Lacey couldn’t be certain, but there seemed to be an air of melancholy about the councilor, as if she had some kind of personal connection to the shooting club and its demise a decade earlier. Lacey wanted to ask more, to find out whether there may be more clues that led back to her father, but the conversation had swiftly moved on, with Suzy’s enthusiastic, “So you see how much untapped potential there is here, and why you should totally get on board with the project!”

The councilor nodded in her stiff manner. “If you’re being given a chance to get involved in the easterly regeneration of Wilfordshire,” she said, “I would most certainly take it. The B&B is just the beginning. Mayor Fletcher has some very big plans for this town. If you make a name for yourself, you’ll be at the top of everyone’s contacts when it comes to future projects.”

Lacey certainly was becoming more and more intrigued by the job offer. Not just for the huge potential to get her name out there—potentially earning a handsome profit while she was at it—but because of how connected it made her feel with Wilfordshire, and her father in turn. She wondered whether her father had seen all the potential in the town back in the days when he’d visited. Perhaps that was why he’d come here in the first place, because he saw a business opportunity and wanted to invest?

Or because he wanted to run away from his marriage and family and settle down in a place more suited to him, Lacey thought.

“Now, I must be going,” Councilwoman Muir said, beckoning her entourage. They leapt immediately to attention. “I have a surgery to attend. The locals are furious about the proposed pedestrianization of the high street. Honestly, you’d think I’d approved to have lava poured into the roads the way they’re acting.” She gave Suzy a quick, efficient nod, then left.