Scratch the Surface

liberty to put her very own real murder to work in promoting her books. The thought brought with it a new realization, namely, that since Quinlan Coates had been Isabelle Hotchkiss, then Isabelle Hotchkiss had perished with him. Ding, dong! By comparison with Felicity, Dorothy had felt indifferent to the news that the Wicked Witch was dead. No more Hotchkiss, no more Kitty Katlikoff, no more Olaf and Lambie Pie! Ding, dong, they were all dead!
    There remained the question of who had killed them. The murder hadn’t yet been solved; it had been recast. Best to think it out before calling Dave Valentine. Who killed Isabelle Hotchkiss? Someone who knew that she was Quinlan Coates. Supposedly, no one knew. Who could have known? William Coates, Quinlan’s son, just might have known, but if, in Oedipal fashion, he’d murdered his father, wouldn’t he have put on a show of grief at the funeral? Wouldn’t he have made a to-do of claiming Edith and Brigitte as his legacy instead of complaining that his father preferred cats to his son? Who else? Hotchkiss’s agent and editor might have known, but neither would have killed so prolific an author and thus so reliable a source of income.
    Then there was Ronald: Wasn’t it odd that Ronald, who knew everything about books and authors, knew nothing about Isabelle Hotchkiss? But Ronald was odd. Good friend though he was, he was peculiar indeed. Looking back to her signing at Newbright Books on the evening of the murder, Felicity vividly remembered that Ronald had appeared while she’d been talking with the fans who had lingered. In fact, he had appeared during a discussion of Isabelle Hotchkiss. Where had he been before that? Ronald doted on his cats, George and Ira, whose vet was someone at Angell, where, on the afternoon of his death, Coates had picked up Edith after her donation of blood. Ronald could have murdered Coates before Felicity arrived at Newbright Books. He could have driven the body—and Edith, of course—to Felicity’s house during her talk and signing. But why? Ronald was Felicity’s best friend. Was he friend enough to have killed her competition? And his own. Ronald was, after all, beginning to write a cat mystery.
    Well, Felicity was Ronald’s friend, too, and a loyal one. If she told Detective Dave Valentine that Quinlan Coates had been Isabelle Hotchkiss, he’d follow the same line of thought that had led her to Ronald Gershwin. Therefore, she could not tell him. Not yet.
     

 
    “Felicity, there is something you must do for Witness.“ Sonya’s voice vibrated in Felicity’s ear. She was sorry she’d answered the phone. “You are the only able-bodied member of the board, and this poisoning needs to be investigated immediately.”
    “Sonya, what happened was unfortunate, but I don’t see the urgency.”
    “Naturally not! You had a light case of this horrible thing. The rest of us are prostate.”
    “Don’t you mean prostrate?”
    “I always mix them up. It’s my sensitivity to all things verbal. The connections. Words to words. And what does it matter, anyway? The point is that the matter has to be investigated, and you’re the only one in a position to do it. I checked the phone book, and there’s a Tony’s Deli in Jamaica Plain, just the way you remembered. Now, what you need to do is to go there and find out what’s what.”
    “We know what’s what. What’s what is that Janice bought food there that made us sick.”
    “Yes, but when did she buy it? On Sunday? Saturday? Or a week before we ate it, in which case we can’t report the deli, can we? Anything goes bad in a week. And we aren’t positive that this Tony’s is the same place. You know, Felicity, it’s a very serious matter to report a restaurant. If the deli is blameless, we could be sued. And Jamaica Plain is in Boston, and all the violations of restaurant codes are posted on that Web site, what’s it called?”
    “The Mayor’s Food Court. But what’s posted there are reports by the city inspectors. It doesn’t list complaints from customers who say the food made them sick. But I do get the point. If Janice bought the food on Sunday morning, then we probably should call the city and have the place inspected. And if this Tony’s in Jamaica Plain isn’t where she bought the food, we obviously shouldn’t report it. I agree.”
    “It won’t take you any time,” Sonya said. “Just buzz down there and ask a few questions. It’s not as if you had to do all