Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  “It’s gorgeous out there,” Rachel crowed. She gave everyone a dazzling grin as she unwrapped a turquoise scarf threaded with silver from around her neck. She wore her clothes from last night, the skinny jeans nearly painted on. I had to hand it to my sister; there was no shame in her game.

  “What happened?” Owen picked up on the sullen faces all around the table and lasered in on Dakota. Beau tightened his jaw and wrapped his arm around Dakota’s shoulders in a possessive stance.

  “Xavier collapsed. The hospital thinks someone put something in his smoothie.” I kept my recounting of what Rachel had missed short and simple.

  Rachel clapped a hand to her mouth as the table erupted with hurtled accusations.

  “You never got over him,” Adrienne spat, pointing a French tip in Roxanne’s direction. “You’ve been mooning over my fiancé all week, and now you’re here wearing all black, like you’re so upset, when I know you were the one who poisoned him!” Gone was her weepy willowiness, replaced by the fiery Adrienne I knew from TV spats with brides and wedding planners. Adrienne appeared crazed and feverish in her rumpled outfit, her makeup from last night spread beneath her eyes in shiny silver half moons.

  “How dare you!” Roxanne stood, her chair falling behind her with a crash. “I know Xavier better than you, you interloper! We were together much longer than you’ve been, and as I recall, he didn’t finish proposing last night. So you’re not technically his fiancée.” Roxanne delivered her speech with Oscar-worthy aplomb, giving her daughter a run for her money.

  “Mother—” Dakota stood and placed a tentative hand on Roxanne’s arm, but her mother shook her off.

  “You and Xavier used to date?” Truman stopped writing in his little notebook and directed his question to Roxanne.

  She colored and collected her chair, righting it and sitting down with a dejected huff. “For ten years,” Roxanne spat. “I know him better than anyone, and I would never, ever harm him.” She wore her love and admiration for the fallen director on her black mourning wear sleeve, and it was painful to behold. “Perhaps you should be focusing your attention on those who would wish Xavier harm.”

  “And who might that be?” Faith tightened her swinging ponytail and picked up her pen, poised and ready to go.

  “Iris and Ellie. Duh!” Roxanne’s voice rose an octave as she slammed the saltshaker for emphasis. Little grains few out and dusted the table. I longed to toss some over my left shoulder, thinking we didn’t need any more bad luck.

  “Mother, how could you?” Dakota rocketed up, knocking Beau’s arm from her shoulders. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” But Dakota didn’t act every second of her life. There was a kernel of concern in her wide violet eyes as she digested what her mother had just declared.

  “Iris is the worst stage mother imaginable,” Roxanne continued. She’d definitely gotten Truman and Faith’s attention.

  Um, pot, meet kettle.

  “Iris would stop at nothing to make Ellie a star just like Dakota,” Roxanne went on, her voice now weary and ponderous. She traced a pattern in the spilled salt with one red fingernail. “Ellie is a nice enough girl, but she doesn’t stand up to her mother and always did what she wanted. And Ellie isn’t that bad of an actress, either. Dakota, being a good friend, too good in my opinion, arranged for Ellie to have an audition to replace Caitlin Quinn when Caitlin was on strike.”

  “Who in the devil is Caitlin Quinn?” Truman put down his pen.

  “She was only the biggest star of Silverlake High,” Faith answered him, her incredulity plain. “Go on.”

  Truman frowned and allowed Roxanne to continue. “Ellie’s screen test was wonderful, even I’ll admit it. But the producer didn’t think she’d be a good fit. Neither did Xavier. He was the director, but he had a lot of sway with casting. Ellie was crushed she didn’t get the part, and Iris was furious. It was embarrassing how she ranted and raved that week.”

  “When was this?” Truman continued to scratch in his notepad, taking time to observe Roxanne as she shared her hunch.

  “Thirteen years ago, to the month.”

  “That’s a long time to hold a grudge,” Faith mused.

  “I’m telling you, I know they’re behind it.” Roxanne’s eyes were wild and rimmed with red from lack of sleep.

  “I think I’ll be going now. You guys be careful.” Owen had stood in silence, listening to Roxanne’s accusations while my sister got filled in. He sent a fleeting glance Dakota’s way, and then dropped a perfunctory kiss on my sister’s forehead. She beamed and walked Owen out through the kitchen, nearly skipping.

  A cup shattered on the wooden breakfast room table. Dakota gasped as hot coffee drenched her lap.

  “S-sorry,” she muttered.

  * * *

  Four hours later, Truman and Faith were willing to call it a day. After Roxanne’s impromptu sharing of her theories, they’d broken up the group for separate questioning in each guest’s room. It was nearly dinnertime. The sun had crawled low in the sky, eager to dip below the white blanket of the horizon for its evening rest. The sunset scape sent rose-gold rays over the snowy landscape, the clouds tinged purple and pink. I leaned against Garrett on a chaise lounge in the library, listening to the gentle cadence of his heartbeat. It felt good to rest in companionable silence after the turmoil of the day. I savored my time with Garrett before he would leave to have dinner with Summer.

  Truman and Faith stopped to get my and Garrett’s takes before they headed out.

  “Can we meet somewhere more private?” Truman scoped out the library with its two curved, open doorways. His eyes strayed down the hall.

  Uh-oh.

  “You want to use the office.” My heart began to beat like a caged hummingbird at the mere thought of entering the room where Ginger had died. I’d ignored the small vestibule Rachel and I shared for the past week and sincerely wondered if I’d ever be able to work there again. It was a light and airy space, painted a soft sage green, with warm maple wood, plump striped sofas where brides and grooms sat for consultations, and a pleasing mix of nineteenth-century watercolors and modern photographs from the grounds of Thistle Park. But now the bright and cozy space felt utterly ruined.

  “We don’t have to—” Faith began, peeking her blond head out the doorway.

  “No, it’s okay. I’m willing to try it.”

  Truman and Faith followed me and Garrett down the hall. I paused before the office, the door handle mercilessly free of crime tape. I pushed the door and took a fortifying breath before plunging into the room.

  Garrett gave my hand a squeeze and led me to a green and yellow chintz sofa.

  Good call.

  I could stomach being in the room, but it would take an even longer while before I’d chance sitting at the wide maple desk. It stood on one side of the office, a big block of honeyed wood, and its twin, Rachel’s desk, mirrored it at the other end.

  Truman and Faith seated themselves in two cozy mustard wingback chairs and pulled out their notepads.

  “This B and B is brimming with shifty characters,” Truman announced. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. Ginger’s investigation probably weighed heavily on him, and now he had another attempted murder added to the mix.

  “What do you mean?” I was excited Truman was making me privy to his investigation. He usually told me, in not so many words, to butt out of his cases.

  “Your guests were awfully quick to point fingers at each other,” Faith chimed in with a shake of her ponytail. “It makes them look a tad guilty.”

  Truman held up one finger, then another. “First Ginger, now Xavier. And both crimes used plants as a weapon of delivery, although in different ways.” The chief leaned forward in his chair. “Ginger was murdered by a mixture of bleach and ammonia, forming chloramine vapor, but the killer used a blue floral arrangement to deliver the fatal fumes. And our toxicologist thinks the bits of plant matter in Xavier’s stomach are some kind of fl
ower, ground in a blender.”

  “He’s addicted to smoothies,” I piped up, shuddering at the thought of the noxious concoctions he always had on hand. “And I love me a good smoothie, but these were kind of pungent. It would have been easy for his would-be killer to chop up something poisonous and slip it in his drink.” Easy enough, that is, now that we’d transported a bunch of live plants from Ellie and Iris’s nursery to Thistle Park’s greenhouse. I shared that thought with Truman and Faith.

  “We’ve gathered the contents of your crisper and the spilled drink from yesterday, of course,” Faith explained.

  “But do you think Ginger’s murder and Xavier’s attempted murder are linked?” It was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

  “There were so many people in this house the night of the Winter Ball,” Garrett mused, his arm around my shoulder. “But every person who was present when Xavier collapsed was also present at the dance.” He had his defense attorney thinking cap on, and his brow was furrowed in thought.

  Truman gave his son an appraising look. “Ah, but the doctors think Xavier had been poisoned for a while, possibly starting when he arrived at Thistle Park. It probably wasn’t a one-off, but a slow accumulation of toxins.”

  “He’s been ill all week,” I said. “We thought it was the flu. It’s going around Port Quincy. And Xavier doesn’t believe in vaccines.” I wracked my brain, trying to pinpoint the day Xavier became sick. A chilling thought flitted through my brain.

  “What if Helene did Ginger in, then tried to poison me for daring to defy her Winter Ball plans?”

  I tried to eat some greens each day, and usually used the crisper for my own salads. I’d just been abstaining this week while Xavier filled the fridge with his exotic herbs. But Helene wouldn’t know that.

  Truman and Faith exchanged a weighted glance. “It’s possible,” Truman began, skepticism lacing his words, “but how would she have gained access to Thistle Park?”

  He had me there. But what Helene wanted, Helene got. Whether she carried out her nefarious plans herself or, more likely, hired some henchmen, I could easily imagine her poisoning me if that were her goal.

  “We shouldn’t make assumptions,” Garrett said, “but let’s just say the poison was meant for Xavier because it’s obvious the smoothies would be the perfect medium to hide a toxic plant. Why would someone kill Ginger, then Xavier?”

  “Maybe to sabotage Dakota and Beau’s wedding,” I suggested, latching on to the idea. “Or to ruin this particular episode of I Do.”

  “Then why not just go after Dakota and Beau themselves?” Truman asked. “They weren’t too happy when I broached that line of questioning,” he added drily.

  “Adrienne claims Roxanne made the smoothie Xavier consumed right before he collapsed,” Faith stated, changing course. “Can you confirm that?”

  I cocked my head and then nodded. “She did make it, and she had access to the crisper all week. You heard her today—she used to date Xavier, albeit over a decade ago. She’s been mooning over him since she arrived here. She almost had a cow the first day of filming. Dakota didn’t tell her he was directing this episode. Maybe she never got over him and if she can’t have him, no one can.”

  Truman and Faith exchanged another ponderous glance, and this time I was asking the questions.

  “Okay, you two, spill it.”

  “Their relationship didn’t end well, according to Dakota,” Truman mused. “She said that Xavier was the love of her mother’s life. We’re definitely looking into Roxanne.”

  “And what about Beau?” Garrett asked. “He’s been grumbling to anyone who’ll listen that he doesn’t want to do this show. What if he took matters into his own hands and tried to end it prematurely?”

  “That’s a possibility,” Truman admitted. “But why would he have anything to do with Ginger’s death?”

  “They could be unrelated,” Faith suggested. “And several people have said to us today that Dakota doesn’t really want to do this reality show episode either. She was just doing it as a favor to Xavier. Maybe she was tired of helping him out.”

  “So you know the show is going to fold soon,” I said.

  Truman sat up. “No, that’s new information.”

  I bit my lip and sent Garrett a fleeting glance. I was about to tread into dangerous waters.

  “I overheard Adrienne and Xavier arguing.” A heat started at the base of my neck, and I felt it climb upward, an outward sign of my embarrassment over snooping. “Xavier mentioned the producer and network are thinking of canning I Do. This episode is basically their last shot.”

  I chanced another glance at my boyfriend before I plunged on. “Adrienne was . . . furious. She accused Xavier of not taking care of her.” Garrett’s hand tightened in mine.

  I paused then and did something I’m not proud of. I committed a teeny, tiny lie of omission and left out a detail that may or may not have been pertinent. I held back the fact that Adrienne was upset Rachel and I had been offered our own destination wedding show. I wasn’t ready to broach the topic with Garrett.

  “I just have to wonder . . .” I trailed off and tried to broach the delicate subject in the least confrontational manner possible. “If Adrienne might not be the culprit.”

  Garrett dropped my hand and turned so fast his head seemed to bobble on his neck. “You can’t be serious, Mallory.”

  I prattled on in a rush, eager to unload my theory before it slipped out of my head. And before Garrett slipped out the door.

  “She mentioned to me just yesterday how upset she was that Xavier hadn’t proposed yet. Maybe she was getting antsy and she thought a life-threatening illness would speed things along. She makes most of his smoothies,” I continued, “except for the one time Roxanne did.”

  “This is outrageous.” Garrett stood and paced in front of the low glass table we’d been convening around, his long legs churning up the carpet. “We just went over all of the other people who could have poisoned Xavier, and you fixated on Adrienne.”

  I gulped and sent Truman and Faith a help me look.

  “She’s right, Garrett,” Truman broke in, his voice steady and even. “We have to look at the significant other. I’m sorry.”

  “But what about Iris and Ellie?” Garrett spat. “You heard Roxanne. Iris’s never gotten over Xavier not recommending her daughter for that role. They run a nursery, for goodness’s sake—they’re the prime suspects for poisoning via plants.”

  “But Iris and Ellie all but announced to everyone who’s been working in the greenhouse this week that bleeding hearts are poisonous in large doses. Maybe someone took them up on that little tidbit. It didn’t have to be them.” My voice sounded petulant. I was hurt Garrett had rushed in to defend Adrienne so quickly.

  Maybe there is something still there, a wheedling little voice whispered in my head. I pushed the thought away.

  Truman gritted his teeth and stood. “And why am I just learning this now, that Ellie and Iris told people bleeding hearts were poisonous?”

  I flushed for the second time this meeting. “I just recalled.”

  “This changes things. We’d been thinking anyone other than Iris or Ellie would have needed to search for plants and poison online. But they were just handed that information.”

  “There is one other way they could have known. . . .” I stood and exited the door, Truman and Faith and Garrett hot on my heels. I skidded to a stop in the library and made a beeline for the largest coffee table.

  “It’s gone!” The large tome on herbs and perennials was missing from the table. I skimmed the shelves for a few minutes in case one of my guests had helpfully re-shelved the encyclopedia, but it appeared to be missing.

  “My big book about plants, which had an entry on bleeding hearts and their use as poison, is missing. I even turned down the page for that entry. Everyone but Adrienne and Roxanne knows we’re planning a secret wedding using bleeding hearts in the greenhouse. So even if someone hasn’t helped us pla
nt, they’d know they’re poisonous from the book.”

  Garrett seized on what I’d just said with a triumphant smile. “You just exonerated Adrienne, Mallory. She doesn’t know there’s a secret wedding plan for Dakota, ergo she has no knowledge there are bleeding hearts in the greenhouse.”

  I felt myself deflate, and then chastised myself.

  Why do you want Adrienne to be the culprit so badly?

  I held my hands out, palms up, another thought percolating. “Bleeding hearts can give you a slight rash. I have one, but I was planting in the greenhouse. Not everyone else was. Maybe you should check out each guest.”

  “Will do. Thanks for the information.” Truman and Faith exchanged another significant glance. I wondered if they’d already noticed rashes while questioning each of my guests this afternoon.

  Garrett glanced at his watch, his earlier annoyance forgotten. “I’m going home to see Summer.” He cupped my face in his hands and set a gentle kiss on my brow, for which I was grateful.

  Phew.

  I was glad I’d spoken my mind about Adrienne. Garrett may not have wanted to hear it, but she was suspect numero uno in my book.

  And I wasn’t the only one. As soon as Garrett had left, Truman and Faith and I returned to the quiet confines of the office. I was beginning to think I could use the space again after all.

  “I have one last request, Mallory.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to help you close this case.”

  “I need you to snoop.”

  My stomach plummeted somewhere in the vicinity of my knees.

  “Um, anything but that.”

  As a former card-carrying member of the ACLU, I wasn’t keen on wading into the murky and nebulous waters of hotel searches. I’d prefer it if Truman and Faith came back with official warrants, all above board, in keeping with the Fourth Amendment.