by Lynn Bohart
No one was in there, but I found a couple of bags of dirty linen, so I went ahead and threw them into the big washing machine and got it started. Then I glanced around to make sure I was still alone, before leaning around the dryer to where the dryer hose was attached to a vent. Above the dryer hose was a louvered vent, and I assumed it was through this that Rosa had overheard the conversation. As I stood there, the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot outside came through loud and clear, and I thought that if someone stopped right next to the vent, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to hear what they had to say.
I left the laundry and stopped in to see Rosa before heading home. I told her I’d be back on Monday. She was resting quietly, but clearly still nervous. Since she was several weeks from her delivery date, I assured her that she would be safe until then, and that over the weekend, I would come up with some ideas to help her.
I returned to the inn, with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I had been successful in replacing the immediacy of Martha’s death with something positive. On the other hand, I was worried now about Rosa and had no idea whether her fears were credible. I also didn’t know how I could help.
When I got back, I had to step in and help change sheets and clean rooms, since Libby wasn’t feeling well. After that, I paid some bills and began returning phone calls. Then Sybil showed up.
“How’r you doin’, Julia?” she said in her usual twang. “I’ve been thinking about you aawl day.”
She was leaning over the reception counter, peering into the office at me. I was sitting in an old swivel desk chair and rolled back and turned to her.
“I’m fine. I was going to stop by later, anyway. I have to go over to Martha’s to pick up a table she sold me. I thought I had a key to her house, but I can’t find it. Do you still have one?”
She reached into the pocket of the wide-leg pants and pulled out an enormous ring of keys.
“Here you go,” she said, quickly pressing a button and releasing a single key. “This is the key to Martha’s back door. You’ll have to jiggle it a little. I’ll need it back tomorrow, though. I’m taking care of her fish.”
She laid the key on the desk and I got up to get it.
“I also have to find a box of pictures Emily wants me to get for the service. Any idea where I’d find that?”
“In the extra bedroom,” she said without a second thought. “There’s a box of pictures in the bookcase. By the way, Julia, you look awfully tired. If those circles under your eyes get any deeper, you’ll have to…”
The front door knob clicked loudly behind her, and the door swung open, making us both look around to the empty space. No one was there. She snapped her big head back to me.
“I have to go!” She turned and skidded past the open door as if it might reach out and grab her.
I went to close the door, feeling a cold spot hover around my knees.
“Thank you, Chloe,” I said with a smile. “Now, go outside and play.”
The cold spot evaporated, and I closed the door.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and guests began returning from their outings around three o’clock. I put out the pitcher of lemonade and some cookies and grabbed a handful, realizing that I’d forgotten to eat lunch.
José stopped in a few minutes before five o’clock and asked what time I wanted to go pick up the table. My eyes burned and my back ached, so I pleaded for some extra time. We agreed on six-thirty, allowing me to join April in the kitchen for dinner.
At six-forty, José and I backed up to Martha’s garage in the van. Since it was December, it was already dark, leaving her driveway illuminated only by the streetlight.
Her house was a large two-story contemporary home that looked out over the inn to the lake beyond. José opened the back of the van and lowered the lift, while I slipped through the side gate to the back door. José found me there a few minutes later, still jiggling the key as Sybil had instructed. The back door light was out, making it difficult to even find the key hole.
“Let me try, Ms. Applegate.”
José must have the eyes of a cat, because with a quick flick of the wrist, he had the door open. The two of us stepped inside and I closed the door. I turned on the lights, releasing a wave of nostalgia as I pictured Martha moving from the stainless steel countertop, to the double-wide stainless steel refrigerator. This had been her domain.
We moved into the den, where a giant aquarium bubbled against one wall, and the gate-leg table sat against another wall with its flaps down. The table was covered with a burgundy silk tablecloth that draped to the floor. The hand-blown glass bowls that usually sat on top had been set aside, and a sob caught in my throat at the thought that Martha had been getting the table ready for me to take.
I threw off the tablecloth, releasing a momentary whiff of men’s cologne that wafted in the air. I thought it was José and turned, thinking he was behind me. But he was on the other side of the big room, opening the garage door. He quickly joined me and we each grabbed an end and moved the table into the garage. I stopped and turned on the garage light, illuminating Martha’s red Volvo, and then punched the button to open the garage door. We carried the table through to the driveway and put it onto the lift.
“Listen, I have to go back in and find a box of pictures for her memorial service,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I returned to the den, feeling Martha in every color choice, book selection, and piece of artwork. She had been very artistic. Although her personal style had been understated, her home was filled with bold colors and modern sculptures—a strange juxtaposition to her introverted personality.
I crossed through the kitchen and into the darkened hallway, which led to the back bedroom. The faint aroma of men’s cologne again made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Then a noise made me stop at the open bedroom door and listen. I was just turning to look back up the hallway, when someone flew out of the bedroom across the hall and slammed into me, shoving me into the darkened room. I cried out as I toppled over a chair, hit my elbow on something hard, and landed on one knee at the end of the bed. The door banged shut behind me. Disoriented, I pushed myself up and stumbled back through the dark to the door, my banged-up body parts on fire.
My right hand searched the wall to find the light switch, and I flicked it on. With trembling fingers, I tried the door and found it unlocked. I yanked it open. No one was there. I hurried into the hallway and back into the kitchen, my heart racing. José came in from the garage, took one look at me and stopped.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
“I…someone…someone attacked me.”
My eyes drifted towards the kitchen door, which now stood wide open.
The sound of a car engine had José spinning around and sprinting back through the garage and down the driveway. I followed him as quickly as I could and got to the back of the van just as he came trudging back up the hill, his dark features set in a grim expression.
“Who was it?” I asked, my heart thumping.
“I don’t know. Are you all right?” His face was creased with concern.
“Yes, but whoever it was pushed me into the study and closed the door,” I said, rubbing my elbow. “What do you think they were doing here?”
He gave me a grave look, the moonlight glinting off the gold cross around his neck. “Maybe people know the house is empty.”
My eyes grew wide. “You mean someone was here to steal something?”
He shrugged, stuffing his hands into his leather jacket. “Maybe. There’s plenty of stuff to steal,” he said, glancing up at the big home. Then he turned to me with caution in his eyes. “This place is like a big invitation. There were a couple of cars parked at the curb when we got here. A sweet vintage mustang. A Toyota Camry. And a black Hummer. The Hummer’s gone.”
José knew his cars. He and a group of friends restored old cars and showed them on the weekends.
“Why don’t you stay here? I’l
l lock up,” he said.
“No, I’ll go with you,” I said, glancing around nervously. “I still have to get the box of pictures.”
As we returned to the house, I pondered how much José might know about things like breakins. He was in his mid-twenties and was taking night classes at one of the local community colleges to become a computer graphics designer. His artwork was very good. So good that I’d asked him to re-do our website. But I suspected that he’d had a hard life.
From what little I knew his mother had died from an overdose of heroin when he was only thirteen, forcing him to live with an abusive uncle. It was one of the reasons I suspected he kept in such good shape. He was only about five-foot eight, but hard as a rock and with a black belt in some kind of martial arts.
José had said once that growing up on the streets of L.A. had taught him a lot. I’d been too embarrassed at the time to ask him what that meant. Had he been in a gang? Or been a car thief? Truth was, I just didn’t know. But the tattoo on his upper arm told me that at one time he may have belonged to a gang. He didn’t belong to one now, I was sure of it. But he needed to be able to protect himself, especially since he was gay, a fact I hadn’t yet shared with any of the girls. After all, they’d be heartbroken. But the girls would be far more forgiving than former gang members if they ever found out.
He accompanied me to the bedroom, where I found the box of pictures right where Sybil had said they would be.
“Now what?” I said to him.
He looked at me a bit skeptically, but then said, “You call the police.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By the next morning, my elbow was black and blue and my knee smarted, but otherwise, I felt fine. The police had come to Martha’s home and taken our report, but weren’t encouraging about finding the intruder. So I chalked it up to bad timing and tried to forget about it—at least for the moment.
It was Saturday, and April wouldn’t be into work until just before noon because she was visiting her husband, Stewart, in a Bellevue dementia care facility. And Mr. Garth was due to arrive around lunch time to begin refinishing Martha’s table.
The girls weren’t scheduled to arrive until ten o’clock, so I recruited José to help me switch out a few of the antique pieces of furniture that hadn’t sold—an antique apothecary chest was replaced with a turn-of-the-century baker’s cabinet, a cherry tea table with a Chinese painted drop-leaf table, and a Queen Anne chair for a Victorian wicker rocker. Then I took the time to change out vintage linens, antique spice cans, and glassware displayed on an old kitchen hutch that sat in the breakfast room—all accented with delicate silk roses that sat in various tea cups. Coming to the St. Claire Inn was never the same experience twice—just the way I liked it.
Blair and Rudy arrived at ten o’clock to discuss the memorial service, but Doe had called to say that she would be late because she was stuck in an emergency union meeting at work. It was all over the news that the drivers in her waste management company were close to a strike over health benefits.
Before we settled down to discuss the memorial service, I had to fill Blair and Rudy in on events. I repeated what Emily had told me about the autopsy and then dropped the bomb about the intruder at Martha’s home the night before. You would have thought I’d just announced aliens had landed. Both Blair and Rudy came out of their seats.
“What?” Rudy said.
“Are you okay?” Blair ran over to me.
I was still standing, giving Blair the opportunity to take me by the arm and plant me in the newly appointed Queen Anne chair as if I was a stroke victim.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I wasn’t hurt. He just scared the hell out of me.”
“Did you call the police?” Rudy asked.
“Yes. But they didn’t have much to say. It could be someone who broke into Martha’s home, knowing that it’s empty now.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Rudy said. “That’s awful. I’m glad José was with you.”
“Me, too,” I said. “But now I’m worried about why Martha thought it would be necessary to order an autopsy if something happened to her. Don’t you find that strange?’
“Maybe she didn’t trust the care she was getting at the clinic,” Blair said, sitting back down. “Wasn’t she seeing a new doctor?”
Rudy leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. “Or maybe she just knew it was her time. My aunt was like that. She actually went and picked out a coffin a week before she had an aneurism and died.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It seems more ominous to me.”
“Maybe that’s just your mystery-reader mind talking,” Blair said, smiling. “I’ll bet they’ll just find it was her heart.”
“By the way,” Rudy spoke up. “I’ll be happy to write the obituary.”
“Thanks,” I said, glad to change the subject. “Don’t forget to include her years on the church council.”
“And when she won that gardening contest,” Blair said to Rudy.
“Has anyone thought about music for the reception?” Rudy asked. “I was thinking we could ask little Jenny Rayburn to play her harp. Martha was pretty close to their family, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, she was,” I said, feeling my energy rise. “That’s a great idea. Blair, any chance you’d be willing to take the pictures and get that neighbor kid to help you put together a short video?”
“Sure,” she said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. “I hope there are pictures from the Mardi Gras dinner last year. Martha absolutely loved that feathered mask she wore.”
The doorbell interrupted us, and I left the girls to find three men standing on the front porch. One was dressed in a suit and tie, about my age, with thick gray hair, and tall enough that I had to crane my neck up to look into his wide-set, brown eyes. Two police officers in uniform stood behind him. I invited them in, feeling a flutter of disquiet in my chest.
“I’m Detective Franks,” he said, looking down at me. “I’m with the Mercer Island Police Department.”
I led them past a curious Crystal into the living room and introduced the other women.
“Mrs. Applegate,” Detective Franks began, “you probably know that Mrs. Denton’s daughter asked for an autopsy. In fact, she paid to have it done right away. We just got the results back and the coroner has determined that she didn’t die from a heart attack.” He stopped and looked around the room as if to gauge our response. “I’m sorry to say that your friend was poisoned.”
He fixed a steady gaze in my direction; I felt suddenly faint.
“Poisoned?” I exhaled, feeling behind me for a chair. “How in the world was she poisoned?”
He took my arm and guided me into the nearest chair.
“She ingested a large dose of arsenic.”
“My peach cobbler?” I asked with a hand to my chest. “That was the last thing she ate.”
“The coroner couldn’t tell the origin,” Detective Franks said. “There were a number of things found in her stomach, including your peach cobbler. But there was also chocolate and a few other things.”
“The chocolate mints?” I said in surprise.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But however she got the arsenic, the coroner says she had to have ingested a good dose of it just before she died. Can you tell me what time she arrived here on Thursday?”
I glanced at Rudy and Blair before answering. They both looked like they’d been turned to stone. I wasn’t even sure Blair was breathing.
“Well, we had just finished lunch,” I said, struggling to remember. “And we had sat down to discuss our book list. So, I’d say around one-thirty.”
I nodded to the other women for confirmation. Rudy finally spoke up.
“I…think that’s about right,” she said, her facial muscles coming back to life. “She was behaving oddly, though. She didn’t seem ill. I mean, she wasn’t frothing at the mouth or anything.”
I thought that was an unfortunate image to create under the circumstance
s, but Detective Franks seemed to ignore it.
“What do you mean she was behaving oddly?”
“She was distracted,” Blair said, “and kept wandering around opening drawers and cupboards as if she were looking for something. We all commented on it.”
“Yes, Detective,” I said. “It seemed almost as if there was something else on her mind. But she didn’t seem ill in the slightest. She wasn’t out of breath or sweating. I even asked her if she was feeling okay, and she said yes. She just took a bite of the cobbler and suddenly…” I stopped, unable to verbalize her death. The detective just nodded.
“I see,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like what the coroner described. He felt certain that she swallowed a large dose of the poison only moments before she died. Is there any chance she found it in one of the drawers she was looking through?”
“I don’t think so. To my knowledge we don’t have anything like that in the inn.”
My gaze swept across the room as I spoke, stopping when I noticed that the cut glass candy dish on the coffee table in front of Rudy had begun to move. We were all used to this at the inn, and I suspected it was Chloe again. I shot a glance back to Detective Franks, but he was reaching into his pocket for something and didn’t notice. So I flashed a warning look at Rudy and nodded toward the dish. She followed my lead and reached out and grabbed it.
“Well,” Detective Franks continued, pulling a piece of paper from his inside pocket. “This may just be an accident, but we have a search warrant to see if we can find out where the arsenic came from.”
He produced the requisite piece of paper, which I didn’t even bother to read.
“Please, go ahead,” I said with a wave of my hand, glancing back to the table.
Rudy was still holding the dish tightly in her hand, a false look of complacency on her face.
“Can you tell me which rooms she went into?”
“Yes,” I said, turning back to the detective. “Um…the kitchen and the dining room.” I pointed to the other rooms.
“And she went several times to the reception desk,” Rudy added, gesturing with her free hand.
