by Lila K Bell
Despite Mother’s urgings, and Sam’s, I stayed close to the action. From the moment I’d heard the first screams, my curiosity had awoken and the itch that had vanished for the last three weeks returned with a vengeance.
I needed to know what was going on. To see if I could find out why this woman, who had been laughing and enjoying herself a few minutes ago, was now lying on the floor, her reign as the Queen of Hearts brought to an early end.
Soon, though, standing around playing observer wasn’t enough. I couldn’t keep still. Even while I swore to myself I would stay out of Sam’s way and remain unnoticed, I couldn’t help tapping my fingers against my thigh.
My beautiful dress, the one that was as close to the animated movie as I’d been able to get it, now felt as though it had shrunk, squeezing me at throat and waist. I wanted to get out of it and change into a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, something freeing that would let me manoeuvre around the hotel and go unseen if I needed to.
“Really, Fi, you shouldn’t be here,” Sam said. It was his third attempt to get me to leave and so far his strategy of politely asking wasn’t working. “Detective Curtis will be here any minute, and you know how she feels about you.”
“I can handle her,” I said.
“You might, but you won’t need to deal with her tomorrow morning. Can you do me this favour and back off? Maybe take Sybil out of here as well?”
He jerked his chin toward his sister, who stood a few feet away, her gaze glued to the dead woman on the stairs. I didn’t want to admit I’d been so wrapped up in what Sam was doing that I hadn’t noticed her there.
Now, as I took in her pale face and riveted gaze, I paid closer attention. Was she about to pass out? Throw up?
The longer I watched her, however, the more I recognized that her deep concentration had nothing to do with fear. If anything, it was interest. An interest I was beginning to know very well.
Regardless, Sam was right about taking her away. I don’t care how prepared one thinks they are to come face to face with a dead body, the memories linger. It was a lesson I’d had to learn the hard way and was still trying to figure out how to cope with.
Though this time it seemed different. Maybe it was the lack of obvious manner of death, maybe it was the costume, but somehow Margery’s death didn’t seem real. Not yet.
Yet I knew that for Sybil, as well as for me, the longer she stayed, the more haunted her dreams would become.
I just didn’t see why it had to be me who looked after her.
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
“I’m not going to start throwing guesses around,” said Sam. “Especially with you.”
“You know me better than that. I’m not about tell the whole world.”
He looked at me over his shoulder and quirked an eyebrow. “No, you’re more likely to deputize yourself to find out who dunnit. We won’t know anything until the medical examiner’s taken a look, and even when we do find out, you’ll be far from the first to know.”
I crossed my arms and resolutely remained in place until the doors opened and a team of police officers and crime scene technicians flooded the ballroom.
Looking around, my heart drooped. The tables were still full of food that would likely end up in the garbage instead of people’s purses. The band’s instruments were still set up, though the music had stopped and the musicians were in the bar with everyone else. So much of the evening had gone to waste.
On the other hand, there was a dead woman at my feet, and enough doubt over what had happened to bring in the police. I know it sounds callous, and I’m sure a lot of people would judge me for it, but in a strange way, Sam was right. From the moment I’d seen the woman lying on the ground, I’d wanted to discover the truth behind her death. Not to wait until the cops figured it out, but to do the work myself. Dive right in.
Apparently the high of bringing in Barnaby Coleman’s murderer hadn’t quite worn off.
“Good work, Robinson,” Detective Curtis said as she swooped in on the scene.
Tonight she appeared much the same as she had the first time I’d met her: more like a television detective than a real one, but with more sensible footwear. Her shoulder-length brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, and her brown suit showed a distinct wrinkle in the back. I guessed the call had come as a surprise and she hadn’t had time to iron before her next shift. Even still, she held herself in a way that anyone who dared mention it would likely be stuck doing traffic duty for the rest of their career, whether they were a police officer or not.
As she reached the stairs and gave it a quick scan, her gaze fell on me. “What is she doing here?” she asked Sam.
“It was her birthday bash, Detective,” he said. “She knows all the guests, so I thought you might want to ask her a few questions before we got to everyone else. They’re all in the bar.”
Sweetheart that he was, he’d gone so far as to give us both a good cover story for my nosiness. I would have to thank him later.
Though Curtis didn’t seem overly impressed by his excuse. She raised an eyebrow, and Sam dropped his gaze to his shoes.
“Detective,” I greeted, hoping to tear her attention away from him. The last thing I wanted was to get him in trouble. He was a good cop — a really good cop. It was just hard for me to take him seriously when we’d spent so much of our childhoods chasing each other around without pants.
“So,” Detective Curtis said, ignoring my attempt at pleasantries. “Do you have anything to offer the class or should you be in the bar with everyone else? Can you identify this woman?”
“It’s Margery Brooks,” I said.
Recognition flared in Curtis’s brown eyes. “The divorce lawyer?”
“The one and only,” I said. “She’s a friend of my father’s. They went to school together and stayed in touch. One of the few who did, I think.”
My father is hardly an easy man to get along with, and somehow it seemed fitting that the one person who’d stayed in his life was a divorce attorney.
Over Curtis’s shoulder, I watched as the medical examiner rolled Margery onto her back. Her face was covered in blood, likely related to the new awkward angle of her nose. She must have broken it during her tumble down the stairs. Otherwise, I couldn’t make out much more than the pallor of her skin, stark against the crimson blood and black wig.
Curtis shifted on her feet to block my view. She caught my gaze, and I met it with ease. Despite her role in the city, she didn’t frighten me. I might be a pain in her well-toned posterior, but my curiosity wasn’t breaking the law. I’d already done that for years and gotten away with it. I was the Midnight Minstrel and she had no idea. That sort of dynamic kept the balance of our relationship firmly in my favour.
“Did you notice anything unusual during the party?” she asked. “Any arguments? Any behaviour from anyone who might have pushed her? Anyone who had a grudge against her? Anyone overly drunk?”
I frowned, giving her questions some genuine thought. Remembering these details could only help me later, as well. “Not that I noticed. A few of the characters who had issue with the Queen of Hearts picked some squabbles with her, which she argued with gusto, but that was all in fun from what I could see. There was nothing personal about it. I lost sight of her after we cut the cake. I guess she must have gone upstairs.”
I cast my attention to the gallery at the top of the stairs. The only things up there were a corridor of paintings, a second set of bathrooms, and a few sofas in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows for people to take a break from the dancing and rest their feet while enjoying the view of the lake.
“What about the guests? Can you tell me who was here?”
“Some of them,” I said, “but most of them I only knew by name. My mother will have a full list, and she would have left a copy with the staff.”
I tilted my head to get a better earful of the conversation being carried out behind Detective Curtis when I overheard the word “poison�
�� being bandied about.
Not a simple shove down the stairs then?
Curioser and curioser, said Alice.
“Is there anything else?” Curtis asked, drawing my attention back to her.
“No, I think that’s all I know,” I said, accepting that my time here was done.
“Then perhaps you’d consider getting out of here so we can carry on with our investigation?”
I held her gaze a moment longer, refusing to let her believe she’d put me in my place. In truth, though, I was ready to leave. I wasn’t about to learn anything else standing here and, despite my feelings toward Detective Curtis, I didn’t want to waste her time either. Someone had killed Margery Brooks at my birthday party. I wanted whoever did it to pay for interrupting my evening.
With or without my help.
I stepped back and looked to Sam, who once more nodded toward Sybil. With a sigh, I headed her way. No one else had come to claim her, and he would be here for at least a couple of hours.
“Shall we get out of here?” I asked.
She barely spared me a glance before returning her attention to the crime scene techs at work, but after a moment, she shrugged. “I guess so.”
She’d slid her mask to the top of her head to clear her vision, and now she pulled it off, freeing her dyed black hair, tugged away the scarf around her neck, and undid the buttons of her waistcoat.
“Your costume was awesome,” I said as we walked toward the door. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to enjoy it more.”
“It was too hot, anyway,” said Sybil, and she ran her hand through her sweat-damp hair to prove it.
At the mention of heat, I became aware of the trickle of sweat running down my own spine. The temperature in the ballroom had been high, only starting to cool after all the people had left. Outside, the early fall breeze was a blessing, but the humidity prevented most of the wind from cooling me off.
When we reached my car, a silver Mercedes I called Mercy, I slipped into the driver’s seat and had already started the engine by the time Sybil dropped into the passenger seat and did up her seatbelt.
“I’m not ready for bed yet. I know Sam told me to take you home, but what do you say we stop off and have some ice cream first?”
Sybil glanced at the clock. “Won’t they be closed?”
“Nah,” I said. “That’s not a problem.”
I pulled out of the hotel parking lot and started toward the downtown core. This late at night there wasn’t much traffic, and it only took us ten minutes to reach Nathan’s Thirty-Two — in my opinion the best ice cream bar in town.
The lights were off, but at this time of night Nathan wasn’t likely to have gone home yet. He liked to take his time cleaning up and working through his accounts for the day. Always a sound businessman, was Nathan.
“See?” said Sybil, and despite her apathy, I heard her disappointment.
“We haven’t even tried,” I said. “ Come on.”
I got out of the car and waited until Sybil followed my lead before crossing the parking lot. The girl dragged her feet, obviously not expecting to find any success here, and the expression on her face was bland. This is boring, the expression said. Nothing here is interesting.
Ah, the joys of being sixteen.
I sneaked another look at her to catch her surprise as I avoided the front door and headed around back. Three sharp raps and two slow ones later, the door opened and a man in his seventies stared down at me.
“Fiona Gates, do you have any idea what time it is? It’s too late for ice cream.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Nathan Wallace, what are you talking about? It’s never too late for ice cream.”
His wrinkled face broke into a smile, and he opened the door wide. “Come on in, then, and pull up a chair.”
I gave Sybil a wink and led the way into the back of the shop. Nathan was a friend of Gramps, and I’d known him as long as I’d been alive. My parents didn’t like him very much — even though he was a successful business owner with enough money tucked away over the years to send his daughter to an art school in Paris and host his son’s wedding in Cancun, he only sold ice cream — but he’d always been one of my favourite people. It helped that he’d enabled my ice cream addiction since I was a kid.
I sat down at the stainless steel table in the back and kicked out a second chair for Sybil. She sank into it and looked around. Her struggle was real to keep her face stoic, but the gleam of pleasure in her eyes couldn’t be repressed.
“The usual for you?” Nathan asked me.
“You know it.”
“And for you, my dear?” he asked Sybil.
“Rocky Road, please,” she said, to my absolute amazement. She’d never been so polite to me.
A few minutes later, Nathan returned with two large cups: Sybil’s Rocky Road and my Roasted Banana and Brownie. One might think I’d had enough sugar tonight with the cake and snacks, but one would be wrong. After a party and a possible murder, there was always room for ice cream.
“You ladies enjoy. I’ll be in my office tidying up. Just make sure the door’s locked when you leave.”
I saluted him, and he shuffled off, whistling to himself.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when that man retires,” I said, shaking my head.
For a few minutes, we ate in peace. I couldn’t tell you where Sybil’s thoughts had gone, but mine had returned to the ballroom and the woman lying potentially poisoned on the stairs.
“It must have been something fast-acting,” I said, and only when Sybil’s expression twisted with confusion did I realize I’d spoken aloud. “The poison,” I explained.
Her brow furrowed as she spooned more ice cream into her mouth. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said around a mouthful of chocolate.
“I overheard some of the officers say it could have been poison that killed our queen. They must have been able to get close enough to see something I didn’t, but if it was poison, it had to be something that worked quickly. She was fine earlier this evening. No one goes from fine to dead in half an hour without something strong urging it along.”
“So…” Sybil said, scooping her spoon around the edge of the cup, “you think someone put something in her food? Why didn’t everyone get sick, then?”
I ran my fingers under my wig and tugged it off. I’d forgotten I was still wearing it. My curls tickled my chin as they tumbled down, and I brushed them behind my ears.
“I don’t think anyone poisoned the food at the table. Not unless they wanted to cause trouble or maybe hide who their real target was. Unless their target was random. Which is possible, I suppose, but I hope not. For one thing, that’s terrifying, but for another, it would make finding out who did it that much more difficult. No, they must have put it into something they knew she would ingest. Food would be difficult, but maybe her drink? Easy enough to slip something into a glass when the person’s attention is directed elsewhere.”
I thought of all the anonymous faces at the party. Only a handful of people would have known who hid behind each mask. That meant it couldn’t have been a stranger. It had to have been someone at the party. Someone who knew Margery.
“Why don’t you leave it to the police to figure it out?” Sybil asked.
At first I didn’t understand the question. Not because I didn’t see her point, but because she didn’t ask it with her usual slouch and disinterest. When I looked up from my ice cream, I found her confusion had turned into curiosity. Without the mask and mouse ears, Sybil was a pretty girl. Her dyed black hair was curled into a bun on top of her head, streaks of bright red cutting through the darkness. Her skin was clear, her blue eyes bright, and though her style tended toward the macabre, it didn’t pass into extreme.
Really, she and I had a lot in common.
But this was the first time I’d struck any obvious chord with her, and the realization removed some of the unease I felt in her company.
“Honestl
y,” I said, licking my spoon and setting my empty cup to the side, “because I get bored. Most of the ways people in my world fill their time make me want to tear out my hair. This is like working on a really advanced puzzle. It keeps my mind busy. And I figure it’s better to solve crimes than to go out and commit them.”
Sybil chewed on her lip for a moment, then finished off her ice cream. I sat in silence and watched her, allowing her the time and space to mull over whatever was passing through her mind.
Finally, she set her empty ice cream cup beside mine and pulled her camera over her head to rest it on the table. “Would pictures help?”
I grinned and sent a silent thank you to Sam. He’d wanted his sister to develop a few new interests, but I suspected giving me a partner was the last thing he’d had in mind.
3
We went back to the car so Nathan could close up, and took a good forty-five minutes to go through all the pictures. With another fifteen to get Sybil home — she’d gone through the backyard and climbed a tree to reach her bedroom window so her parents wouldn’t know how late she was; a girl after my own heart — I didn’t walk through my own front door until well after midnight.
Although we hadn’t made out much of the party in the small screen of Sybil’s camera, I’d learned enough to know that Margery’s law partner, Ralph Goodwin, had also been in attendance. After I washed my face and finally changed out of my Alice dress, wishing I could have had a chance to wear it a little longer, I collapsed into bed thinking about how I would approach Ralph in the morning.
My dreams were full of masks and laughing faces spinning around me while I tried to find my bearings. I was trapped in the middle of the crowd, searching for a particular person, but was blocked at every exit by even more people. I couldn’t breathe and my skin was crawling.
When I finally opened my eyes — way too early in the morning — a cold sweat covered my back and my stomach was tied in knots. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember who I might have been searching for.
