Nightshade for Warning

by Bailey Cattrell

  Felicity sat back with an air of satisfaction. “At home with my two children, my husband, his parents, and his sister, who is visiting from out of town. I didn’t even know Blake was in Poppyville until I found out he was dead.”

  I felt my shoulders slump.

  She saw it, too, because something in her eyes flared. “Why do you care, anyway?”

  I stood, feeling defeated. “It’s not that I wanted you to be a murderer.”

  “That’s a relief.” The words dripped sarcasm.

  “It’s just that the police suspect my brother’s girlfriend, and I know she didn’t do it.”

  Felicity stood and snagged my gaze. “Okay. I get that. But I didn’t kill him, either.” She gestured toward the door, and, as I turned to let myself out, she added, “I’m not sorry he’s dead, though.”

  CHAPTER 11

  NO one seemed to be sorry Blake Sontag was dead, except, perhaps, his sister. It had been hard to tell with Joyous. It made me wonder what his life away from Poppyville had been like. He’d been based out of Sacramento, but from what Lupe had told me, his personal life had been pretty dreary. Not even a dog to his name. Still, he’d had a girlfriend at some point, and he probably would have had another in the future. Maybe even a wife and kids. Maybe that would have cheered him up. It was sad that he’d never have those things now. I could only hope he’d had a best friend to tell his troubles to. Or more likely, to complain to.

  And maybe a cat. Or a fish.

  I’d had a fish for a short time. Astrid had tasked me with fostering Josie Overland’s blue betta after Josie was killed. Unfortunately, he’d gone to fishy heaven and now lived under the Jupiter’s beard in the Enchanted Garden.

  Shaking myself out of my reverie, I came around the side of the reception desk and thanked the young man there. The flash of sunlight reflecting off water in my peripheral vision drew my attention to the pool at the side of the hotel. From this angle most of it was visible through the French doors.

  Most of the pool, and my ex-husband sitting in a chaise lounge next to it. His pale legs stuck out of a pair of cargo shorts, and he wore wraparound sunglasses that made him look like a bug.

  What the heck is he doing lounging by the side of the pool at the Hotel California in the middle of the day? I’d hardly known him to take a single day off from the Roux in the years since it had opened. During waking hours, if Harris wasn’t at the restaurant, he was either running errands or . . .

  On a date.

  Unable to help myself, I oh-so-casually strolled over and leaned against the wall next to the doors. Then I carefully peeked around the edge.

  Harris’ “date” wore a Panama hat, white chinos, and a pale blue shirt open to show the considerable pelt on his chest.

  His friend Vaughn with no last name. They were deep in conversation, and didn’t see me spying on them.

  I pushed away from the wall and went over to the bar. As I hitched myself up on a stool, Mark Kittery came over to take my drink order. He was a trainer at the Boomtown Gym. His shaved head and trademark eyebrow ring were distinctive. I’d last seen him behind the register at the hardware store, and I wondered whether he’d changed his second job or taken on a third.

  “Hey, Ellie. How’s it going?” His eyes flicked toward the French doors that I’d been spying through. He’d obviously seen my antics.

  “Fine and dandy. How’s the personal training business?” I asked, trying to deflect his attention.

  He grinned. “Great! You need to come into the gym. That time you tried it out you really kicked butt on the weight machines.”

  I managed not to visibly shudder and pasted a smile on my face. “I’ll think about it.” I loathed gyms and had only ventured into the Boomtown to meet a possible murder suspect. Give me a garden workout any day.

  “Heard from Ritter?” He and Mark were old friends from high school.

  “Yesterday. He’s enjoying his work.”

  “Always has,” he said with a nod. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  I asked for a club soda. “So, I was wondering . . .”

  Mark finished filling the glass and added a twist of lemon. He pushed it across to me, leaned his elbows on the counter and grinned. “What were you wondering?”

  “There’s a guy out by the pool.”

  “Yes . . . ?” He was teasing me.

  “Not Harris,” I said. “The guy with the Panama hat. His first name is Vaughn.”

  Mark nodded that he knew who I meant.

  “I keep seeing him around town. Do you know who he is?”

  The bartender shook his head. “I don’t know his last name. He’s staying here, at least I think he is, but he always pays with cash.” He rolled his eyes. “He and another guest got into it the other night, and I had to step in and break it up.”

  I blinked “There was a fight in here?” The Horseshoe Bar didn’t exactly attract the same clientele as, say, Willie’s Pool Hall.

  He shook his head. “Nah. Just an argument. But it was pretty bad, and I was honestly afraid it might come to blows.” He grinned. “Luckily, they listened to reason and both left.”

  Eyeing Mark’s rippling muscles, I could see why.

  “Well, I hope it doesn’t happen again,” I said, laying a bill on the bar for my drink.

  “Oh, it won’t. The man who was arguing with that guy out by the pool is the one who died.”

  I froze. “Panama hat was arguing with Blake Sontag?”

  Mark nodded.

  “When was this?” I asked, barely able to breathe.

  He thought. “Well, I guess it was the night before the guy died.”

  “Night before last? What time?”

  “I came on shift at nine, so about ten, I guess. Maybe a little earlier.”

  After we’d had dinner with Blake but before Larken had taken him the tea.

  “Did you hear what they were arguing about?”

  “Not really. It started out pretty quiet, over there in the corner. Intense, though. The guy with the hat seemed to want something, and the Sontag dude kept shaking his head. Before they stood up and it looked like Sontag was going to pop the guy in the mouth, I heard him say something like, ‘I don’t care what she told you. I’ll never sell.’”

  Oh, wow. It must have been about the parcel of land.

  “Have the police talked to you about this?”

  His eyes widened, and he shook his head.

  “Well, don’t be surprised if they do,” I said, and left him gazing after me.

  • • •

  IT was almost three. I had just enough time to run by Gold Rush Realty before meeting Tanner Spence back at my house. But when I saw the housekeeping cart going into the elevator, I couldn’t help myself.

  “Excuse me?”

  The dark-haired woman pushing it looked over her shoulder as I came across the lobby. She nodded with a smile, and held the elevator for me. I got on with her.

  “Hi,” I said brightly.

  She looked at me in surprise. “Hello.”

  “Do you happen to clean the rooms on the third floor?” Specifically room 344.

  She touched her cheek with her fingertips and stared at me. “No, ma’am.” I detected a Romanian accent. “Rhonda cleans that floor.”

  “Is she working today?”

  A tentative nod.

  I pushed the button for the third floor. “Thank you!”

  “You are most welcome, ma’am.”

  At three I got off, smiling back at her, and turned toward the cleaning cart in the hallway. Light spilled from the open room next to it.

  “Hi!” I chirped from the doorway. “Rhonda?”

  The housekeeper looked up from where she was making the bed, and I instantly recognized her. Thin as a rail and with big dark eyes, she’d been a waitr
ess at the Roux for several years. Like Maggie, she must be moonlighting. I knew Harris had cut hours at the restaurant, but it concerned me that so many of his—formerly our—employees needed second jobs to make ends meet. Was I going to find Raleigh, the head chef, pumping gas next?

  She straightened, suspicion flooding her face. But when she saw it was me, her doubt transformed into a smile. “Ellie!”

  “Hi,” I said again with effort. I was a natural introvert, and all this questioning people was starting to wear on me. Maybe that’s why I showed all the delicacy of a bulldozer when I continued with, “Are you the one who found the body in room 344?”

  However, I could tell right away I hadn’t offended her by the way she said, “Golly, yeah. That detective told me not to talk about it, though.”

  Oh, but how she wanted to talk about it. Really, really wanted to. Her eyes shone with it. This was the biggest thing that was going to happen to Rhonda all year.

  Small-town gossip had its disadvantages for sure, but sometimes it was a downright boon.

  I came into the room and started to sit on the bed, then thought better of it. No need to make her shift any longer. Reaching for the other side of the sheet, I pulled it toward the headboard at the same time I said, “You know, I had dinner with him the night before he died.”

  Her eyes grew as round as saucers. “You did?”

  “Yep.” I nodded toward the bed.

  She dutifully grabbed her side of the sheet, and together we smoothed and tucked, then reached for the blanket.

  “It must have been pretty awful, stumbling into . . .” I lowered my voice. “A dead body on the floor like that.” I felt bad egging her on, especially since I’d found a dead body, too, and not long ago.

  Rhonda, however, seemed far less traumatized than I had been. “It was. Oh, gosh, yes,” she said. “When I told my mother, she about fainted.”

  “I bet,” I said. “What time was it?”

  We pulled the coverlet up and began arranging the sham-covered pillows on top.

  “It was a little after eight in the morning, I think.”

  “Had he checked out?” I asked.

  “Oh, no. I was cleaning the room next door, and I noticed his door was open a little ways. Not much, but as if it hadn’t quite latched. So I kind of watched it while I finished cleaning the other room, you know? Because sometimes people leave their doors like that when they’re going back and forth to their cars, taking out luggage, stuff like that. But no one came or went the whole time I was there, so when I was ready to move to the next room on my list, I figured the door had been left open by accident.” She slid a pillow into a fresh case and fluffed it. Her face was animated as she continued her tale.

  “So I could either leave it, and someone might just walk in and take their stuff, or I could close it. The guests can always get a key from the front desk if they need to, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  It was all the encouragement she needed. “Well, when I reached for the door, I noticed there was this sort of, well, smell coming from the room. It just seemed like maybe something was wrong. So I pushed the door open.”

  “And there was definitely something wrong.”

  “Oh, gosh. I about screamed. I didn’t, though. I looked around to make sure there wasn’t some madman standing in the corner, and then called down to the front desk on my radio.” She looked thoughtful as she gathered the dirty linens from the chair and carried them out to the bin under the cart. “And you know, I thought of you.”

  Right behind her in the hallway, I stopped cold in my tracks. “What? Why would you think of me?”

  “Because of the little jelly jar with dried stuff in it on the dresser with all the other bottles.” She smiled at me, excitement still in her eyes. “You know, because of your garden and your herbs and all.”

  I stared at her. “There were other bottles?”

  Her head bobbed happily. “Pills. Not the prescription kind. The kind like my mom takes. Saint-John’s-wort and turmeric and gingko something. For the memory. Vitamins galore. I bet that guy was as much of a hypochondriac as Mama is.”

  • • •

  BOTTLES of supplements. Was that one of the loose ends in the case that Lupe had mentioned?

  I dialed her number, but my call went to voice mail. “Detective Garcia, I wanted to let you know that Blake Sontag got into an argument with some guy staying at the Hotel California the night he was killed. In the Horseshoe Bar, about ten or a little earlier. The bartender, Mark Kittery, had to step in before it came to blows.” I paused a few seconds. “The man’s first name is Vaughn, but I don’t know his last name. I’ve seen him twice with Harris, though, so you might ask him. Or Max could. You’re welcome.”

  I clicked the phone off, tossed it onto the Wrangler’s passenger seat, and stepped on the accelerator. I probably should have thanked her for following up with Felicity so quickly, but it was her job, after all.

  I backed off the gas. No need to go over the speed limit. It was quarter after three, and I had a choice: go back home and get gussied up in case Tanner Spence wanted to take my picture, or go by Gold Rush Realty and see what I could find out about the Sontag place.

  After a few seconds’ hesitation, I turned toward Cooperhawk Court.

  Dr. Ericcson’s office was across from the turn onto Cooperhawk, and Astrid was coming out as I drove by. I honked, and she yelled something.

  I slowed and waited for her to hurry across the street. “Hey!” she greeted me. “What have you been up to?”

  I briefly filled her in on what I’d learned that afternoon. “Listen, I only have a few minutes before meeting the photographer from Conscience for the tiny house photo shoot.” I’d told her about the new interview that morning after we’d gone to see Joyous. “I wanted to get some more details about the Sontags’ land first.”

  Her eyes lit up. “I’ll come with you.”

  • • •

  THE door to Gold Rush Realty was open to the foyer, and we paused on the threshold to assess our options. A young woman hunched over a keyboard behind the circular reception counter by the entrance. Four high-tech desks with matching white computers were arranged around the edge of the room, facing the center. Only two were occupied. A hall led to private offices and a glass-walled conference room at the back of the building. Whisper blue walls and recessed lighting lent a calm, oceanic atmosphere emphasized by the large tropical fish tank. Fake air freshener tried to cover the leftover odor of a Chinese lunch.

  The receptionist looked up from her computer with a wide, welcoming smile. “Can I help you?”

  I gestured toward the front window. “Can you tell us anything about the parcel of land advertised on that flyer?”

  She stood. “Which one?”

  We went over to the window, and I pointed to the ad for the Sontag place.

  “That would be Polly’s listing.” She turned toward one of the occupied desks, calling the agent’s name.

  “Thanks.” Astrid and I walked toward the woman who rose to greet us, while the receptionist returned to her post.

  Polly’s expertly streaked, ash blond hair curled smoothly below the shoulders of her dark blue suit, and her smile was blindingly white. We introduced ourselves and settled into the two matching guest chairs. She looked between us eagerly, and I explained which property I was interested in.

  “Oh, my, yes.” She bobbed her head several times. “We’ve had a great deal of interest in that land. Are you thinking of developing it, or are you looking for a country place of your own?”

  “It said something on the flyer about platting it,” I said. “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “Subdividing it. You have to go through a process with the Board of County Commissioners to do that, apply for rezoning, and pay for a variety of assessments and permits.”

&nb
sp; “Sounds like a hassle and a half,” Astrid said.

  I nodded my agreement.

  Polly smiled and shrugged. “But once that’s all taken care of, you could build a whole neighborhood out there. With half-acre lots, you could put forty homes in and still have space for a clubhouse and pool. Wait—you do know where the plot is, don’t you?”

  I nodded, biting my tongue to keep from commenting on the travesty of cramming forty homes onto that pristine land. Astrid was right about it being a lot of trouble to go to, but someone might be willing to deal with all the red tape in order to reap the eventual profits—which would be considerable.

  “Well, then you know the view of Kestrel Peak would add value to a development, too.” Polly sounded delighted. She probably figured some nice commissions would come her way once the houses were built and on the market.

  “You said there are others interested?” Astrid asked.

  She nodded pertly. “Yes, indeed.”

  “But you just put the flyer up yesterday evening,” I said. “I saw you.”

  Her head tipped to the side, and she leaned toward. “Ah, but that was because it went back on the market. You see, it was for sale for a few weeks, and then last week, one of the owners changed their minds and canceled the listing, but now it’s for sale again.”

  Owners. Plural.

  “Was it Joyous’ brother who didn’t want to sell?” I asked. “Blake?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “You know who the land . . . Well, you don’t need to worry. No one will be changing their minds about selling now.”

  “No kidding,” Astrid muttered.

  Polly looked horrified. “Oh, I didn’t mean . . . no, only that . . . I’m sorry, but I’ve been asked not to talk about the owners.”

  “Owner,” I corrected.

  The agent blushed, but nodded. “Yes.”

  I leaned forward. “We talked to Joyous about it this morning, actually. I was hoping she’d take me out there and show me around—or at least give me the key to the gate. That’s some fence! There’s no evidence of it on the flyer.”

  Polly sighed. “Yes, well. Photoshop, you know. She told me she didn’t want anyone camping there.”