Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  “Just hear me out.” Truman held up his hand. “You know as well as I do I don’t have enough evidence to go through the rooms. Yet,” he added with a rueful smile. “Just the fridge for now. I know your guests have a reasonable expectation of privacy, but I’m unofficially deputizing you to do a search.”

  I squirmed in my chair, torn. On one hand, I was delighted Truman trusted me to help him with his investigation. And I yearned to find the person who had murdered Ginger and tried to do the same to Xavier.

  But I wasn’t sure I could do it. “What did you have in mind?” I asked in a small voice.

  “You have a lot of leeway when you’re straightening up rooms. You do occasionally open drawers and peek under beds as part of your cleaning, correct?”

  “Oh, no way, Jose.” I shook my head. “Tell you what. I’ll compromise. I’ll be on the lookout while I’m cleaning for anything suspicious or interesting in plain sight. But that’s it. No looking under beds, no rifling through drawers. I’m not above the law.”

  Truman nodded, pleased.

  I’ve been had, I realized with a start. Truman thought I’d refuse altogether, so he pitched a slightly illegal version of the search he wanted me to perform, knowing I’d settle somewhere in the middle, straddling the line between legality and not.

  “You’re good.” I sighed, shaking my head. “Really good.” I worried for the criminals who had killed Ginger and tried to do Xavier in. In the end, they’d have no chance against Truman Davies.

  Truman offered me a triumphant smile, and he and Faith swept out of Thistle Park.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next day stretched on, cold and clear, but the sun didn’t make a dent in the icy cap of snow reaching for the horizon. I wondered if Adrienne would want to ditch the newer yellow, early spring wedding plans and revert to Dakota’s original black and white affair. But she had bigger fish to fry. She spent the rest of the day in silent vigil next to Xavier’s bedside at the Port Quincy McGavitt-Pierce Memorial Hospital, named after the family that had built Thistle Park, and Helene’s late husband.

  Truman’s plea to walk the tightrope of criminal procedure rules and perform a soft search of the rooms weighed on me. But for now I could ignore his proposed snooping and focus on wedding-planning tasks. Dakota and sisters Leah and Ellie had a dress-fitting appointment to try on their new gowns for the secret pink and red wedding scheme. Bev Mitchell, proprietor of the Silver Bells dress shop, had offered to do the fitting in Thistle Park, rather than requiring Dakota to brave the onslaught of nosy fans following her around town. Dakota had gratefully accepted Bev’s offer. Now we huddled in the parlor drinking tea as the bride and her maids tried on their gowns, and Bev bustled around them with pins in her mouth. Iris sat on a chair observing the fitting, accompanying her two daughters. Roxanne was nowhere to be seen. I’d overheard her arguing with her bank, pacing on the front porch. Now she’d retired to her room with Pixie the Shih Tzu to mourn Xavier’s continued coma. It was just as well, since we couldn’t have her observing the new gowns. She still didn’t know about the new pink and red wedding plans.

  “It won’t be the same without Ginger,” Dakota breathed. She looked gorgeous and sullen and exhausted in her satin ball gown. She stood on a chair as Bev pinned her faux fur hemline. Bev’s voluminous beehive sparkled, dotted with crystal snowflake pins.

  Uh-oh.

  Bev was the biggest gossip in town, and whatever Dakota discussed with her friends would be shared with all of Port Quincy posthaste.

  “Things are happening again,” Leah glumly reported from the couch. She sat with a calculus text on her lap, half listening to the conversation, half studying. Her purple hair was scraped into an artfully sculptural bun, strands pointing out in jagged lines, Edward Scissorhands-style, defying gravity. The tresses clashed magnificently with the fire-engine-red brocade gowns Dakota had selected. Leah pushed her black glasses up her angular nose and rested her hand on her chin, her eyebrows raised.

  “What do you mean, again?” Bev shamelessly asked, taking a pin out of her mouth. “There, dear, you’re all hemmed. You can step out of your dress now.” She smiled at Dakota, who was shooting Leah a warning glare in silent conference.

  “Caitlin Quinn died thirteen years ago almost to the day Ginger did,” Leah continued, her calculus book forgotten. She seemed to defy Dakota’s panicked eyes. “I was the one who found her,” she added. Her young face was awfully somber and pensive.

  “How terrible,” I breathed. “You were what, just a little girl?”

  “She was five,” Iris cut in crisply from her perch on the fainting couch. “Imagine trying to explain what happened to a child, finding that girl locked in her dressing room.” She shuddered and came to sit next to Leah. “Why must you bring up Caitlin’s accident, dear?”

  Leah stared at her lap, chagrined. “I’m just trying to make sense of things, Mom.” A single tear slipped beneath the rim of her glasses and dribbled down to the tip of her nose. “Ginger was my mentor, and now she’s gone.”

  “There, there.” Iris drew Leah to her and handed her a tissue from her purse. She’d dropped her tiger mama routine and was comforting and sweet. “We have enough on our plate with that odious little director’s illness without dredging up the past.”

  Okay, the tiger mama is back.

  “Iris!” Dakota peeked her head from behind the antique cherry blossom screen where she was changing and shook her head in anger. “Do not speak of Xavier that way. He’s a personal friend, and he may never wake again.”

  “If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be under suspicion for murder!” Iris twisted the tissue in her lap and reduced it to shreds. “Ellie and I spent most of this afternoon at the police station going over how plants from our nursery could have ended up in Xavier’s smoothie.” She shook her head, the corona of soft gray and brown hair bobbing around her rounded cheekbones. “Someone is trying to frame us.” Gone was her warm, earth-mother demeanor. Her voice was high pitched and histrionic. “The man is a fool, not picking my Ellie for Silverlake High. But I don’t want him dead, for goodness’s sake.”

  “Oh, Mother, it’s time you got over my not having an acting career,” Ellie piped up, her voice clear and low. “It’s been thirteen years since I lost that role. It’s time to move on.” Ellie stood statue still as Bev fluttered behind her, pinning and folding fabric.

  “Fair enough,” Iris replied. She finally stilled her busy hands and gave the tissue a break. “We all know who tried to kill Xavier anyway. I’m sure Ellie and I will be exonerated in due course.” She sniffed and held her head high again. Her serene demeanor was back in full force.

  “And who is that?” Bev stopped drawing in Ellie’s red gown and eagerly leaned around.

  “Why, Roxanne, of course!” Iris stood and ticked off reasons on her plump fingers. “She was with Xavier when we visited thirteen years ago, and just like Adrienne, she couldn’t pin him down. She was pining for marriage and it never came to fruition. And now he’s with Adrienne. If Roxanne can’t have Xavier, no one will.” Iris sat down and avoided Dakota’s red-hot gaze.

  “Then why not just do away with Adrienne?” Leah piped up. She set aside her calculus textbook for good.

  “Because it isn’t my mother!” Dakota exploded, finally back in her jeans and sweater. “She’s not a killer. Maybe she isn’t over Xavier. So what? That doesn’t mean she’d ever poison him.” She dug her shaking hands in her pockets and paced in front of the roaring fire. “My money’s on Adrienne herself. Tell them what you told me, Mallory.” She sent me a pleading gaze, and I choked and sputtered on a gulp of tea.

  “Me? Tell them what?”

  Okay, so I personally agree that Adrienne is the number-one suspect. But I can’t let my guests turn on each other. I will not allow my B and B to devolve into a pit of vipers.

  “Tell them about the show.”

  I sighed and shared the news of the destination wedding show.

  “I’m
so excited for you,” Ellie squealed. She jumped up and down in her voluminous red gown, appearing like an inverted, buoyant hot-air balloon. Iris cast hot, jealous eyes my way.

  “I’m not sure if we’ll even agree to do it, and it’s not a sure thing,” I cautioned. “But I do know Adrienne wasn’t happy about Xavier pulling strings to get us our own show. Especially”—I glanced at Dakota—“since I Do will probably be cancelled, and Adrienne will be out of a job.”

  Dakota nodded. “I’m only doing this show as a favor to Xavier. If this Hail Mary episode doesn’t work, the show’s off the air.” She twisted her ring from Beau around and around her finger and sighed. “I wish I’d never done this episode. First, my best and oldest friend is murdered, and now my colleague and mentor Xavier is poisoned by his fiancée, Adrienne.”

  A gasp echoed through the front hall. We all swiveled our heads to see Adrienne staring in horror at Dakota.

  “Wait!” Dakota ran after Adrienne, her dress fitting forgotten.

  * * *

  Bev left with the gowns and some juicy tidbits of information. Adrienne refused to leave her room, and Dakota stood outside her door. She dithered for a while before she offered a long and fumbling apology. I put on my sleuthing cap and gathered my cleaning supplies, ready to grudgingly do Truman’s bidding.

  Weird things were afoot in my B and B, and though I didn’t approve of snooping, even I couldn’t deny it was time to do some investigation. I smirked as I gathered my cleaning supplies and glanced at my watch. Rachel was nowhere to be seen. More often than not, she’d find a way to shirk the scullery maid aspects of running the B and B. I didn’t mind cleaning though, and was okay going solo. I found straightening up the rooms to be therapeutic. I’d usually don my headphones and clean on autopilot, gathering my thoughts for the day. But this afternoon I’d be eagle-eyed and questing, on the lookout for anything unusual—within constitutional limits, of course.

  Rachel did have a special kind of radar for fun, since she showed up right before I entered Roxanne’s room.

  “Truman called me to help you search the rooms,” she breathed, her cheeks still rosy from a jaunt outside.

  Nice one, Truman.

  My sister would have no compunction about sifting through people’s belongings and landing on the illegal side of search and seizure law.

  “We can’t look through drawers, or peek under beds or open closed wardrobe doors,” I cautioned. I caught a glimpse of my face in the large gilt mirror at the top of the stairs. I was stern and brooked no wiggle room.

  Rachel pouted, her heart-shaped mouth turning down in a frown. “That’s so boring.”

  “That’s the law,” I shot back, then stuck out my tongue.

  Rachel laughed and shook her head. “Fine. We’ll be boring. And legal.”

  We made hasty plans to search most of the rooms separately, and then join forces for Dakota and Beau’s room, as well as Adrienne and Xavier’s and finally Roxanne’s room.

  “What have you been up to?” Dakota’s wedding had proved to be a somewhat lonely endeavor ever since Beau tried to kiss my sister and she’d exiled herself. I was used to running my ideas past Rachel and getting her input.

  “I just went sledding with Owen,” she breathed, her green eyes sparkling.

  “So you spent the night with him during the blizzard?” It slipped out before I could stop myself.

  Rachel grabbed a dust mop and headed down the hall, ignoring my query. “A lady never kisses and tells,” she said with a smirk. She inserted her master key into the lock of the room occupied by the lighting technician for I Do and gave the door a hearty push.

  “Rachel Marie Shepard, don’t you dare hold out on me! We’re sisters, remember?” I’d never known Rachel not to share the juicy details of her latest conquest. She’d been on her self-imposed dating moratorium for three months, and her date with Owen had lasted all night, whether due to the weather or something else.

  Rachel turned, her face suddenly serious. “Owen is something special.” She looked close to tears. She whisked herself into the room and shut the door behind her with a soft click.

  I shook my head and entered the camerawoman’s pink bedroom. Most of the guests cleared out of their rooms by early afternoon, as they understood that was when I straightened up. The room was empty, and nothing stood out. I made quick work of the gaffer’s room and met Rachel back in the hall to go over Roxanne’s room.

  “Ready?” Rachel nodded, and I turned the key.

  Roxanne’s yellow bedroom was neat and tidy, the bed made and all of her clothes put away. Pixie’s doggie bed stood near the electric fireplace, as well as a collection of canine toys. Rachel and I stood in silence in the middle of the big room, willing our eyes to pick up a clue worthy of Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot.

  “This is harder than it looks,” Rachel mused. She set down her dust mop and turned in a slow circle.

  “Nothing’s jumping out, but what did we expect? A big pile of chopped-up leaves and stems? Maybe a confession note?”

  Rachel drew in a sharp breath and advanced to the small teak vanity, her eyes wide in the antique mirror.

  “What did you find?”

  She picked up a small jar and squealed. “Crème de la Mer! I’ve always wanted to try some.” She unscrewed the small ceramic container and dipped her sparkly nails into the face cream, patting a dab under her eyes.

  “Rachel, you can’t sample our guests’ toiletries!” I pulled her from the vanity and marched us out the door.

  “Oh, lighten up, Mallory. I only took a dab.” Rachel locked the door behind her and rolled her eyes.

  “I wonder what Truman would say if he found out you were sampling suspects’ beauty products instead of snooping,” I mumbled.

  Next up was Dakota and Beau’s room, the sumptuous purple honeymoon suite. Dakota’s belongings were neatly placed on luggage racks on the right side of the room, while Beau’s things spilled out of a prodigious amount of luggage on the left. The bride had brought way less things than her groom, besides the two garment bags holding her gowns. Beau’s side of the room was a little messy, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. We made their bed and fluffed their pillows, wiped down their bathroom, and opened the drapes.

  “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

  I came out of the bathroom to find my sister flat on her stomach, her arm elbow deep under the cherry wardrobe.

  “Rach, that’s not in plain view!” I dropped my duster and hustled over to pull her out.

  “But a scrap of silk was peeking out from under the wardrobe,” Rachel argued, emerging with a small satin box. “See?”

  A thin strand of shiny red material hung from the edge of the box, a ribbon of some sort.

  “So what?” I murmured. “Put it back.”

  “Uh-uh.” Rachel held the box over my head, using her height to her advantage. “Why put a present under the wardrobe?”

  “It’s probably some wedding-night lingerie or something. Put it away. You just engaged in an illegal search.”

  “Let’s just see—” Rachel executed a neat pirouette away from me and whisked the top of the box off.

  “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “What size does Dakota wear?”

  “A zero, I believe.” Yes, that was it. I’d heard her discuss her dress size with Bev as the seamstress had unbelievably had to take in the waist of her size-zero dress another half inch. I’d never make it in Hollywood. I glanced down at my size-eight jeans and snorted.

  “So definitely not a six?” Rachel cocked one brow and held up the lingerie, a spicy red and lace number obviously too big for the bride.

  “Holy tamale. Who is that for?” My visceral dislike of Beau grew tenfold.

  “And you didn’t want me to look,” Rachel tsked, folding the scarlet-letter lingerie and neatly placing it in the box. “We’re definitely telling Truman about that.”

  My heart hurt for Dakota. I’d been chea
ted on by my fiancé, and while I was ultimately glad that the discovery had led to the dissolution of our engagement, there was a small part of me I wasn’t sure would ever get over the initial betrayal.

  “I’ll have to tell Dakota,” I whispered, staring at the satin box as Rachel pushed it back into hiding under the wardrobe.

  Rachel let out a bitter laugh. “We already told her he tried to kiss me, and she reasoned her way out of that truth.” She blinked. “Some people just see what they want to see.”

  We locked up and headed to the last room, Adrienne and Xavier’s blue suite. She was thankfully out again, no doubt perched beside a slumbering Xavier at the hospital. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding in. The last time I’d straightened up her room, before her fiancé had been poisoned, she’d given me some unsolicited advice.

  “Are you a wedding planner, or a B and B purveyor? You spend an awful lot of time fluffing pillows and changing sheets. Perhaps you should reassess your priorities and hire out more.” Her icy blue eyes had drilled into mine. As usual, her criticism was correct.

  I’d grudgingly admitted she had a point. I’d been meaning to hire more help. When I held weddings at the B and B on weekends it was nearly impossible to pull off the ceremony and keep the B and B running like a well-oiled machine.

  Rachel and I got to work straightening up the room as we kept our eyes out for anything unusual.

  “I thought Xavier didn’t believe in medicine,” Rachel mused, a bottle in her hands. I plucked it from her fingers and read the label.

  “Melatonin. I think this would be right up his alley. It’s a natural sleep aid.”

  Rachel snatched the bottle back and unscrewed the top.

  “Okay, that’s totally outside the bounds of this search,” I warned. My sister scattered the contents of the bottle into her outstretched palm. Little blue, triangular pills rained into her hand.

  “Those don’t look too natural.”

  Huh.

  She had a point. They looked pharmaceutical grade, not like some kind of health supplement pill as I’d been expecting.