A fatal feast at bramsfo.., p.6
A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor, page 6
Just as Giff’s antics were ramping up, a cold, angry breeze blew into the room, quelling the flames on the candles and hitting her square in the face. It caused the fine hairs on the back of her neck to prickle uncomfortably. That was bad enough, yet when Bunny’s eyes were drawn to the doorway, her heart clenched painfully. That was because it was there again, her white rabbit. From the way it was looking at her, with those near glowing red eyes and that ridiculous wiggling nose, she understood what she needed to do. That’s why when the rabbit turned and began hopping away, Bunny stood up from the table and followed it.
“Where are you going?” Giff asked, breaking his stellar performance to question her.
“Something’s wrong,” she replied without looking at him. Her focus was on the rabbit. Little else mattered. As she hurried out of the dining room, she was only vaguely aware that the others were following her.
Bunny continued down a short hallway after the white rabbit. She had the feeling that it was leading her somewhere, but where? Why, for that matter? A moment later her curiosity was piqued as the rabbit skirted past a room and headed instead down the long gallery. Not her favorite part of the manor. However, not to be deterred by her own foolish notions, she held her breath and chased after it, passing the case of antique china and silver, passing the family coat of arms, and all the rest of the treasures. After all, she was following a white rabbit—a vision only she could see— down the dreadful long gallery. She was nearly upon it when it took a sharp left and bounded for the mistletoe chest against the wall. Her heart sank as she watched it wiggle behind the chest where it seemed to vanish. That was when she noticed a stain on the carpet beneath the chest. At first, she thought it was just part of the ornate pattern. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was blood. Seized by both fright and panic, she took a deep breath and heaved open the lid.
And then she screamed.
Chapter 9
The gruesome sight of the body in the mistletoe chest sent waves of prickling shock coursing through her. It was so painful she was about to faint. Just as her knees buckled, she felt a pair of strong arms come around her, preventing her from hitting the floor.
“My God, it’s Marcus Bean,” Brett cried, holding her tightly. “I think he’s dead. Most definitely dead! There’s a knife sticking out of his chest!”
Knife? Another wave of panic seized her. The sight of the body had been such a shock that most of her senses had shut down because of it, including her sense of sight. She hadn’t noticed a knife. Had she gone blind? No, she realized. Her eyes had reflexively shut against the offending vision. Tightly. As if blocking it out would erase the entire episode. It hadn’t, of course, and now Brett was talking about a knife. She had to check . . . just to be sure. It was probably nothing. Just a coincidence. Still in the grip of Brett’s strong and surprisingly comforting arms, Bunny chanced another look at the body. She was ready to peel one eye open when Lilly Plum’s voice rented the air.
“Bloody hell! That’s your missing knife, Bunny!”
Her eyes sprang wide open, and she stared at Lilly’s horrified face. That might have been a mistake. Because behind the look of horror another thought was brewing in the chef’s brown eyes. This one was even more frightening to Bunny than the first, because Lilly clearly thought she had been the one responsible for the deed.
“No,” Bunny uttered, leaving the comfort of Brett’s arms to stand on her own two feet. “Nope. Can’t be.” Yet as hard as she tried to deny it, one look at the body and she could feel all the blood drain from her face. Sure enough, her boning knife, which had been missing from the manor kitchen this morning, was now sticking out of Marcus Bean’s very bloody chest. She fervently wished it had remained missing!
“Ghastly!” Morgan uttered as she attempted to shield her eyes with her hand. Bunny noted that she was still peeking, but only halfway, as if that would soften the blow. Clearly Morgan was both horrified and intrigued at the sight. Then, stating with a lack of empathy that Bunny found rather common in the upper crust, Morgan added, “We now know why he skipped the Spirit Supper. Only something this dastardly could keep him from a free meal. Is that really your knife, Ms. MacBride?”
Bunny felt it best to hold her tongue. It wasn’t like she wanted it back or anything, now that it had, quite literally, taken a life. No matter what your religious upbringing might be, pulling a knife out of a man’s chest, who was, himself, in a chest, was triple bad luck any way you looked at it.
“How did you know he was in there, Ms. MacBride?” This question came from Sir Charles. Although he was clearly upset, Bunny couldn’t help noticing a twinkle of suspicion in his eyes as he looked at her.
She crossed her arms and turned her back on the body in the chest. “I . . . I didn’t know.”
Just then Giff ambled over to the chest. He was late to the party, likely because he had paused for another mug of wassail. The crystal mug was still in his hand as he peered at the man in the mistletoe chest. He made a face, then launched into act two of his channeling performance. “Ahh, my heart. It burns, I tell ya. It burns.” He placed a hand over his heart, pretending he’d been stabbed. His face then contorted in question. “What’s . . . happening to me? Where am I? I see a light. It’s so bright, so welcoming. It’s beckoning to me but . . . but a girl in a white nightgown is standing in my way. Move aside, darlin’ and let me pass.” At this point he skillfully shifted gears and began channeling the voice of the teenage Mistletoe Bride once again.
“Don’t go, mister. Please don’t go. You mustn’t leave me here alone in this place with them—”
“Dude,” Mike said, interrupting Giff’s ridiculous performance. “The cameras aren’t rolling.”
“What?” Giff looked confused. “Come again?”
“The cameras aren’t rolling. This is real.”
“Wait.” He sobered dramatically and dropped his act. “Are you telling me that this isn’t part of the show?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Brett informed him with a chiding look.
That was when Gifford McGrady, grabbing the three dangling crystals around his neck, proceeded to freak out in earnest. Bunny was sorry to think that she preferred his goofy channeling act instead of this total emotional breakdown.
“I’m in the same room as a dead man? There’s so much blood! Why is there so much blood? Ohmygod, is that a knife sticking out of his chest? That’s disgusting! That’s horrible! Ohmygod, Marcus Bean’s been murdered!” He had finally, in his roundabout way, come to the heart of the matter.
“It’s Bunny’s knife,” Morgan added slyly, spilling the tea, so to speak. She was not disappointed. Giff turned to Bunny with a look of abject horror coupled with a sharp intake of breath.
“Nooo! You didn’t . . . did you?” She found his bug-eyed look insulting.
“Of course, I didn’t!” Bunny snapped. “That knife”—here she reached a hand behind her and shook her finger at the object in question—“was supposed to be in my knife roll. I noticed it missing from the kitchen this morning. I certainly did not expect to see it there!”
“I find that interesting,” Sir Charles said in his stuffy English drawl. “You got up and left the dining room in the middle of the Spirit Supper. It was so odd that we all followed as you led us right to this chest. I’m stunned. I’m angered,” he added, pointing to the blood pooling on the rich carpet under the chest. “Is this your way of confessing your dark deed?”
Bunny’s hand flew over her mouth. “What?” The questioning look on Brett’s face frightened her even more. “I . . . I didn’t do this. I swear I didn’t. Why would I?”
“Then would you mind telling us what on earth drove you to come here and open this lid?” Sir Charles demanded.
What could she say? Clearly, they all thought she was either mad or a murderer. “I . . . thought I saw a rabbit.”
Giff inhaled sharply. “A rabbit? In Bramsford Manor? That’s crazy talk.”
Was it? Because she had purposely left out the fact that the rabbit she’d been following was white. Why had she thought leaving out this one little detail would make a difference?
Then, to Bunny’s horror, Lilly tilted her head as she calmly asked, “Would it be that same white rabbit you thought you saw out the kitchen window today?” The pity that oozed from Lilly’s eyes nearly undid her.
Dear Lord, what was happening to her? Bunny’s heart kicked into an even higher gear as she stared at the chef.
The fact that Bunny didn’t say anything spurred Lilly to announce to one and all, “She asked me if I saw a white rabbit. She pointed out the window to the back lawn, but nothing was there. Ms. MacBride was either hallucinating or trying to distract me.”
“It was none of those things!” Bunny cried. “I saw a white rabbit!”
The term white rabbit circulated on the lips of the dinner guests in a soft murmur. Bunny heard Lilly whisper to Morgan and Sir Charles, “She’s a gifted chef, but maybe she snapped under the pressure?”
“I heard that!” Bunny did not take kindly to people challenging her mental health. It was just fine, thank you very much. Then, chancing a look at the man lying in the chest with her knife sticking out of him, she thought again. I’m not not mental, she told herself, using a double negative to soften the blow. She had to admit that seeing a vision of a white rabbit is hardly normal. She silently cursed herself once again for signing that damn contract Mary Stobart had dangled under her nose. Then she cursed the white rabbit of doom!
While all this was going on, Peter Billingsley, the calm and collected hotel manager, had wisely called the police. He was now escorting what looked to be the entire village police station into the long gallery.
“Make way,” snapped the tall, fit man in the lead with the flaming red hair. The small dinner gathering parted, revealing the gruesome scene. Officer Redhead strode over to the mistletoe chest and crossed his arms as another man came beside him and began snapping pictures. A third officer joined him and took out a small notebook and pen. “My, my,” Officer Redhead remarked. “What do we have here? Does anyone know who this unfortunate fellow is?” As the officer looked around, Sir Charles piped up.
“That’s Marcus Bean. He’s the manor’s historian.”
“Write that down,” Officer Redhead told his man. “Note the blood pooling on the carpet at the base of the chest, and the splatter marks here.” His finger circled the air above the marks in question. Officer Redhead then stood a moment, drinking in his surroundings, until he finally addressed the owner of the manor. “Sir Charles Wallingford, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Styles Standish. And this is now a crime scene. Is there somewhere we might talk while my men process the scene?”
With everyone back in the dining room, DCI Standish was brought up to speed on the Spirit Supper, the night’s proposed ghost hunt, the two missing guests at the table (one of them an old ghost, the other likely a new one) and how Bridget “Bunny” MacBride, one of the hosts of this new Food & Spirits show, abruptly left her seat in the middle of dinner and led them all to the historic mistletoe chest. Then the ironic twist was revealed, delivered by Sir Charles. “The murder weapon also belongs to Ms. MacBride.”
Bunny had known it was coming, yet hearing that final detail from the lips of the handsome and urbane lord of the manor, was akin to that proverbial last nail in the coffin. It was hammered home, and there was no turning back now. Even worse was the look on Brett Bloom’s face. Fear, hurt, betrayal, and even a tinge of anger could be detected. She hated to admit how much that look of his tortured her. She wanted to cry out, stating her innocence. After all, her knife had been missing from the kitchen that morning and it was none of her own doing! She was only following the white rabbit to see what it wanted. Yet even she knew how ridiculous all of that sounded.
The tall detective chief inspector strode over to her chair. Looking down on her like a displeased parent, he said, “It appears, Ms. MacBride, that however we look at this, all fingers keep pointing to you. You led everyone to the chest in the middle of . . . whatever this Spirit Supper is. Then we come to find that a knife you claim to be missing was used as the murder weapon. What was your relationship with Marcus Bean?”
“Relationship? We didn’t have a relationship, sir. I’ve only just met the man.”
“Then would you mind telling us how you knew that Marcus Bean would be in the mistletoe chest?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Then why did you lead everyone straight to it?”
She could tell them, but they would never believe her. The white rabbit, as far as she knew, was a vision that only she could see. Truthfully, she didn’t really know what it was, or what it meant, only that it plagued her when her guard was down. The day she had first seen the innocent white rabbit, it was sitting calmly on the bank of the loch she had just been pulled out of. The moment she saw the odd sight, she had a feeling he had died. For reasons she couldn’t fully explain, she had always associated her vision of the white rabbit with him. Why then had it led her to a murdered man?
She didn’t know the answer to that. Therefore, addressing DCI Standish’s question, she shrugged and offered, “A hunch?”
This was obviously not what he wanted to hear. “A hunch? Is that all you have? Because a hunch, as you call it, Ms. MacBride, will not hold up in a court of law. I’m placing you under arrest for the suspected murder of Marcus Bean. The rest of you are not to leave this parish until this matter is resolved.”
A rush of hot blood flooded Bunny’s cheeks. She was frightened, upset, and mortally embarrassed. How could they believe that she would murder a man she had just met? As she was placed in handcuffs she cast a beseeching look at her team, the men who had placed great faith in her abilities. Their expressions ranged from stunned amazement to extreme displeasure. And then there was Gifford McGrady, the man who had turned spiritual mediumship into a comedy sketch. She doubted that he even believed in ghosts. And yet there was not one ounce of doubt or displeasure in his eyes. With a firm look and a curt nod, he assured her, “I believe you, Bunny. Hang in there. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
White rabbit aside, his words were the only glimmer of hope she had to cling to.
Chapter 10
When learning that Food & Spirits was essentially a ghost-hunting reality TV show with a food angle, Bunny had bristled. It was a natural reaction, akin to a primal instinct that arose to protect oneself from possible danger. She knew that by putting herself in areas thick with paranormal activity—like haunted old buildings, for example—sensitivities within her would be pried open, sensitivities she preferred remain shut. Tightly shut and forgotten about. Yet as resolved as she had been, Bunny had cracked. All it had taken was one night in haunted old Bramsford Manor, and the ten years she had spent bottling up her emotions and unsettling sensitivities had ended, spewing forth like fine champagne from an uncorked bottle.
Yet now it was worse than even she could have imagined. Not only was she seeing the white rabbit again, but that idiot rabbit had led her to a dead body. She really had no explanation at all as to why her prized boning knife had been found protruding from the chest of the manor’s historian. Well, technically, it was only the hilt of the knife that had been sticking out. But to any chef worth a grain of salt, that hilt was recognizable. It was a Henckels S series professional knife, which Bunny was very proud to own. Thinking about the terrible misuse of her knife, DCI Standish asked his question again. They were going around in circles in the interrogation room at the police station.
“Any ideas? Any ideas at all as to how your knife ended up through the heart of Marcus Bean?”
“I wish I had, sir, but here’s my answer once again. It was as great a surprise to me as it was to you. I’ve already mentioned to you several times now that my boning knife had gone missing from my knife roll in the manor’s kitchen. Also, I had very little to do with Marcus Bean. I had just met the man and rather liked him.”
“Who knew about your missing knife?”
“No offense, DCI Standish, but you could just play back the recording.” Here Bunny pointed to the recording device on the table. She then offered a patient smile as she explained for the fifth time, “I’ve said it four times already, but I’ll say it again. Once I discovered it was missing, I broadcasted the offense to the entire kitchen staff. They were helping me look for it. Lilly Plum, the head chef, can verify that for you. She was helping as well.” Although the entire interrogation was being taped and observed by those behind the mirrored glass, Bunny watched as DCI Standish scribbled her answer once again in his notepad.
“Let’s return to the most interesting part of the evening, shall we? It’s the part where you got up in the middle of that remarkable supper you made and strode out of the dining room. It was”—he paused to look at a name in his notebook before continuing—“according to Ed Franco, in the middle of a shoot. You were filming the dinner for your new show. Why would you leave in the middle of that?”
It was the question Bunny feared the most. Like her missing knife, he had already asked this question four times, and each time she had told him the same thing: that she had merely been acting on a hunch. Even she could see how ridiculous that sounded. It was way past midnight, and she was exhausted. She had to tell him something to end this exhausting go-round of questioning. Crossing her arms, she leaned on the table and looked him in the eyes. “How much do you know about me?” This she asked, knowing they had run a thorough background check on her before the interrogation began.
Standish acknowledged the question and decided to humor her. “We know that you were born in Inverary, Scotland, applied for a visa to work in America when you were nineteen, and emigrated to the States shortly thereafter, where you worked in various restaurants in New York City until finally securing a position with the Mealtime Network.”
“That’s all you know about me?”
