by Lyndsey Cole
“Yes. Please,” Leona said. “We’ll be down soon.”
“Is everyone still at the table?” Annie asked.
Alex nodded. “Well, except for the chef.”
That comment sent another shiver up Annie’s spine. Who was in Robin’s room?
Alex paused as his eyes scanned around the room. Annie sensed he was making a lightning analysis of the space before he turned and left. Something was odd about his behavior.
As the sound of his footfalls receded down the stairs, Leona approached the bathroom door. Annie picked up one of Robin’s boots, thinking it was better than nothing if she needed a weapon.
With one quick movement, Leona slid the bathroom door open and shined her light inside. Still nothing.
“Someone has to be in here somewhere,” Annie whispered.
“Maybe it was Trouble. She likes to explore.”
“And how do you explain the light? There was light coming from under the door after the generator went out.”
“Right. I forgot.”
Annie pulled the shower curtain to the side. Crouched in the tub, looking at the two women with wide eyes, was a man . . . a young skinny man . . . who looked scared to death. He had a battery powered lantern clutched to his chest.
“Who are you?” demanded Leona.
His mouth opened but nothing came out.
“What are you doing here?” she added without giving him any time to answer the first question.
“I . . . um . . . Robin snuck me in.”
“Robin? When?”
“She texted me when everyone was out of the kitchen and she let me in the back door and brought me up here.”
“Why?”
The young man rolled his eyes. “Really? We weren’t going to waste a paid weekend at this place. Queen bed, great food, no worries about her mother sneaking up on us.”
Annie elbowed Leona. “He must be Robin’s boyfriend.” She lowered the boot she’d been holding. “Get out of the tub. You have to come downstairs with us while we wait for the police to arrive.”
“You’re having me arrested?” He stood and almost slipped as he lifted one leg over the edge of the tub. “We’re sharing the room. Is it because Robin brought food up for me? I only ate the stuff she didn’t want.”
Annie held his arm. “We’ll talk about it later.” At this point, until Detective Crank arrived and figured out what had happened to Chef Marcel, it would be easier to share as few details as possible and keep nosey eyes downstairs. “What’s your name?”
“Jared.”
Light flooded the bathroom as the sound of the generator filled the air. “Geesh, did you have every lightbulb turned on in here?” Leona flipped the switch for the bathroom off. “My electric bill will be through the roof.”
“Let’s go, Jared. You first,” Annie said. She pushed him toward the hall with Leona close behind.
Leona sighed. “That Alex has been a blessing. Good thing his car got stranded nearby. That’s about the only thing that has worked out for me tonight.”
Alex’s arrival was a little too convenient, Annie was beginning to think. Or was she being overly suspicious with all the other problems that landed on Leona’s doorstep with the storm?
As they made their way down the hall toward the stairs, Jared glanced at Chef Marcel’s door. Leona stopped and Annie heard the lock click into place. That was smart. Keep everyone out.
With the lights back on, the fires roaring in the fireplaces, and food on everyone’s plates, it almost, but not quite, felt normal.
“Jared?” Robin asked with obvious surprise in her voice.
“Yeah. Busted. Sorry, dude. And now they,” Jared jerked his head toward Leona and Annie, “called the police.”
“Interesting.” Robin helped herself to another scoop of scalloped potatoes.
“You’re not gonna defend me? It’s not like I broke any law or anything.”
“You didn’t have to stay here, Jared. I would have been happy to hang out by myself and work on my book after you dropped me off.” Robin sipped whatever was in her wine glass.
“You two can sort this out another time,” Leona said. “I have called the police and you all might as well know why.”
All eyes turned toward Leona.
“It’s about Chef Marcel.”
“Food poisoning?” George pushed his plate away. “I thought this chicken tasted a little off.”
“He didn’t eat any chicken,” Leona said through clenched teeth.
“Oh, George, Leona’s chicken is perfect,” Connie said. She turned her attention to Leona. “Maybe you could teach us how to make it if Chef Marcel isn’t feeling well?”
“Maybe. We’ll see what happens with the storm. My generator isn’t big enough to run the whole house. It’s powerful enough to keep the lights on, the well pumping water, and the fridge running as long as we have diesel for the generator,” Leona explained.
“About that, Leona.” Alex scratched the side of his face. “I hate to be the barer of bad news, but I just dumped in the last of the diesel that was stored near the generator. Unless you have more someplace else?”
Would this be the news that pushed Leona over the edge?
She calmly pulled out the chair next to Alex and looked around the table. “I’ll gather all my candles and make sure there’s plenty of wood for the fireplaces in case this power outage goes on for much longer and we can’t keep the generator going.”
Sarah whimpered.
Leona gave her a stern look and sat. “Now, I’m going to eat. Jared, take a seat. I don’t want this food to go to waste. You too, Annie.”
With the chandelier over the table sparkling for the moment, food disappearing, and a semblance of normal chatter around the table, Annie managed to eat Leona’s juicy chicken cordon bleu, savory spinach salad, and a small helping of tender scalloped potatoes before the inevitable happened.
“So, Leona, you never did tell us what happened to Chef Marcel. My guess is that he passed out from drinking too much wine. It almost did me in and he had a lot more than I did.” Connie dabbed her napkin over her lips. Her fork and knife were perfectly in the center of her spotless plate. Did she let Buddy lick the plate when no one was paying attention? Annie wasn’t about to touch that subject.
Leona had a mouthful of chicken so Annie took over the conversation. She’d had some time to remember when everyone had gone upstairs. Any one of the guests could have murdered the chef. “Interesting question, Connie.” She looked around the table, stopping to stare at Jared first. “You were hiding in Robin’s room. Alex, you went up soon after you arrived.” She paused for a sip of wine. “Robin went upstairs next with a plate of food. George and Sarah also went to their room before dinner. I helped Connie upstairs after her fainting spell, and Chef Marcel went upstairs in front of us. It’s interesting that all of you were upstairs between the time when he was last seen alive,” she paused to look at each guest once more, “and the time he was murdered.”
Jared’s face turned as white as the snow blowing around outside.
Robin smirked.
George clenched his jaw and turned several shades darker than his wife’s pink scarf.
Sarah blinked as if she couldn’t even comprehend Annie’s words.
Connie swooned dramatically against the back of her chair for the second time since she’d been at the Blackbird.
Buddy licked her face.
Alex was the only one who Annie noticed was watching all the other guests’ reactions, just as she was.
“So, which one of you murdered Chef Marcel?” she asked, although she would have been flabbergasted if someone had jumped up and confessed.
6
The dining room was quiet—dead quiet, not-even-anyone-breathing quiet—for several seconds following Annie’s question. Mouths fell open and suspicious eyes moved from person to person around the table. A candle sputtered and sizzled. Then everyone reacted at once.
George threw his napkin on the table and pu
shed himself off his chair. “Well, I’ll be expecting two full refunds for this scam of a workshop.” He stomped from the room. His shoes clacked on each stair until they were muffled when he reached the oriental runner in the upstairs hallway.
Sarah hustled after George. “Wait, George. I don’t think we can get a refund from a dead man.”
Jared, his face still white as snow, looked around the table. “Why is everyone staring at me? I didn’t kill that guy. You believe me, don’t you?” His voice squeaked higher with each sentence.
“That’s a quick denial for someone who snuck inside and hid upstairs. Or, maybe, your guilty conscience is in panic mode now?” Annie shrugged, dismissing the whole reason for Jared’s action as unimportant at the moment. “Whatever. At any rate, it doesn’t matter what we believe. You’ll have your time with Detective Christy Crank when she arrives.” An involuntary shudder traveled through Annie at the thought of being in the hot seat under the detective’s scrutiny. Christy’s intimidating glare. A glare that held the power to melt the coldest snow ball.
“I couldn’t have hoped for a more interesting turn of events.” Robin grinned and leaned back in her chair. “Coming down for dinner turned out to be a smart decision. This twist just gave me lots of new ideas for my novel.”
“What are you talking about?” Connie asked. She had a bit of color back in her cheeks and she reached for a roll. “You sound happy about this horrible event. I can’t even begin to figure out what to think about that.” She turned toward Annie. “Could you be mistaken? It all feels like I’ve landed in the middle of a dream . . . or nightmare.” With another turn of her head, she asked Leona, “What, in heavens name, do we do now?”
“I’ve called the police department. Detective Crank will be here as soon as possible. But, under the circumstances, I was instructed to lock Chef Marcel’s room and keep it off limits to avoid any contamination of the evidence.”
“Evidence?” Jared’s complexion changed from white to green. His hand covered his mouth and he rushed from the dining room. Footfalls echoed as he charged upstairs.
“What do you think that was all about?” Annie made a point to keep her eyes on Robin. After all, she’d enabled Jared access to the upstairs.
Robin shrugged. “Weak stomach?” She pushed some uneaten potatoes around her empty plate. “How did the chef die? If I was writing something like this in one of my novels, I think I would have poisoned him. Wouldn’t that be fitting? French chef dies from eating his own poisoned chocolate éclair.”
“How can you joke about this?” Connie snuck a piece of roll to Buddy, putting it on the edge of the table for him. “Besides, we haven’t made the éclairs yet.” She dabbed a cotton handkerchief under her eyes. “I was so looking forward to having an éclair tonight. Wasn’t that what was scheduled?” She looked hopefully at Leona. “Do you have a backup dessert?”
Leona, in the middle of clearing the table was back from the kitchen for another load of dishes. “Well, I’ll check. It wasn’t part of my responsibility for the weekend. Chef Marcel only ordered meals for the workshop, without desserts,” she emphasized.
“I’m sure you can find something, Leona. Check the freezer.” Annie picked up the almost empty casserole of scalloped potatoes. “You could offer something that you planned to send to the Black Cat Café.”
“I suppose you’re right. Business at the café will be slow until the roads are cleared. I’ll find something.”
Connie clapped her hands. Her concern about Chef Marcel, apparently a distant memory when the current topic of conversation turned to dessert. “What is it?”
Alex took the platter from Leona’s hands. “I’ll finish this while you share your recipe with Connie.”
Annie stacked the rest of the dinner plates and followed Alex into the kitchen. “You don’t have to help. You’re a guest. I can manage.” She thought he was going a bit too far with his Boy Scout pitching-in style. She tried to guide him out of the kitchen but he planted himself in front of the sink and wouldn’t budge.
“Technically, I’m not a guest. Helping out is the least I can do after you and Leona so kindly took me in. I get chilled to the bone just thinking that I could be lost under a pile of snow outside, frozen to death.” He set the platter in the sink and turned on the water. “Besides, I wanted to talk to you away from Connie. She gets kind of hysterical when anything comes up about the chef.”
Annie’s attention jumped to high. For someone who’d stumbled to the Blackbird during a storm, she wondered why he had so much interest in that particular guest. “I don’t know anything more than what Leona already shared.” What information did Alex want? She hadn’t meant to sound so defensive but his comment left a bad taste in her mouth. Didn’t he realize that everyone in the Blackbird was a potential suspect? Including himself?
“Oh, of course not. What I wanted to tell you is that I think someone went into Chef Marcel’s room.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, at some point, maybe thirty or forty-five minutes after I arrived and you showed me to my room, I heard a lot of commotion in the hallway—footsteps, doors opening and closing, that sort of thing.”
Annie nodded. “That was around the time that everyone went upstairs to their rooms before dinner.”
“At any rate, all the noise caught my attention.” He scrubbed the platter in the sink.
Annie waited for him to continue.
Alex chewed on his bottom lip. “I’m curious by nature. I’ve been going over and over what I heard. It sure sounded like the chef’s door opened and closed several times which makes me assume that someone went in.”
“You could hear his door?”
“Remember, the room you so kindly let me use is next to the chef’s.”
Annie picked up a drying towel. “Did you see who went in?” She stacked the clean pots and pans in the cupboard.
“No, just the door clicking. I counted, there were three times the door clicked open then closed. I don’t know what it all means but it’s just that, you know, in light of what has happened, I thought it might be a relevant bit of information.”
“When Detective Christy Crank gets here you can tell her. I’m sure she’ll want to interview everyone.” For all Annie knew, the chef might have opened and closed his door for some reason. Or, and this concerned her the most, Alex made it all up to throw suspicion away from himself.
Annie heard scratching on the kitchen door from the dining room side. She pushed it open. “Well, hello Buddy.” Seeing the adorable dachshund made her even more homesick for her cozy living room with the fireplace, Jason, and her own dog and cats.
Buddy made a beeline to the back door.
“I guess you need to go outside?” Annie asked the dachshund. “Let me check with Connie first. I don’t want to do something that could upset her even more than she already is.”
Annie poked her head into the dining room. “Do you mind if I take Buddy out? I could use a bit of fresh air myself.”
“You don’t mind? I’m sure he won’t go far with those short legs and all the snow out there. Let me put his sweater on.”
Leona used that interruption to pile the last of the dirty dishes and bring them into the kitchen. She rolled her eyes as she walked by Annie. “A sweater?”
Alex snorted but continued scrubbing pots at the sink.
After Connie retrieved Buddy’s red and black plaid sweater along with four little booties and his blue leash, she helped herself to coffee.
“That’s not hot anymore,” Leona said.
Connie waved her free hand. “No worries. At this point, anything that can give me a little kick is perfect. Did you find any dessert yet?”
“Not yet. How about you check the fire in the living room? Add a couple logs so we have one toasty room while I finish up in here and Annie takes Buddy outside.” Leona tied her apron around her waist. “Just a couple of logs, we don’t want the living room to turn into a furnace again.”
“I’ll check the diesel situation in the generator for you to see if it needs more yet.” Alex dried his hands, waiting for a response.
“You don’t mind?” Leona asked. “I guess I have to scrounge up some sort of dessert or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Glad to help after you more or less saved my life.” Alex headed toward the front door where his boots and other warm clothes had been left.
Annie followed. She bundled up and opened the door for Buddy, stuffing his leash in her pocket. With the snow, Buddy wasn’t going to be going far. He hesitated before plunging off the step and almost disappearing into a snow drift. With a couple of leaps and bounds, he found a spot near a bush where the wind had blown most of the snow away and he lifted his leg.
Annie used the shovel to clear off the top step. Snow still swirled around her but it wasn’t blinding and the trees swayed gently.
“I think the storm is winding down,” Alex hollered from further along the path. He left boot prints on the path which made it easy for Annie to see where she needed to shovel.
The driveway, buried under more drifts of snow, was a white desert with only car tops showing through. But the road beyond had one lane cleared and the lone streetlight shone brightly.
“Hey,” Annie shouted. “The power must be back on.”
While Annie pushed her shovel through the deep snow, Buddy followed closely behind.
Alex tromped to the garage and disappeared inside. With the generator suddenly silenced, the quiet that blanketed Annie brought a temporary but welcome calm. Without the background noise, she forced her brain to focus on the mess inside the Blackbird.
“I’ll go in and help Leona unless you want me to do some shoveling,” Alex said on his way back to the house.
“I need the exercise. Tell Leona I’ll be in shortly. Buddy is having too much fun out here.” Annie had to admit that having Alex get stranded at the Blackbird did have some benefits with all the help he provided. He was one of the brighter spots, or possibly the only bright spot, of the evening except for the nagging suspicion that there was more to him than he had revealed.
