As they walked to the inn, Lori looked up and saw a giant blow-up crossword floating in the air above the building. The street in front of the inn had been cordoned off and tables and umbrellas set up. As they got closer, she saw flea market stands underneath the umbrellas, selling crossword paraphernalia—T-shirts, mugs, trays—and someone had dressed a small dachshund in a crossword-patterned coat. Further on, she could see Hazel unpacking a box at a stand selling saucer-sized ginger cookies with crosswords iced onto them.
“It looks like the tournament is turning into a carnival,” Lori said to Nick as they made their way through the stalls.
“Yes, seems Kermit’s pulling out all the stops to bring in money,” Nick replied, looking around. “I hope it pays off.”
Lori went straight to the dining hall and joined Hazel, Rosie and Jasmine, who were busy fixing up the tables and bringing out food from the kitchen.
“Have you met that guy over there,” Jasmine said, pointing through the windows to Clay sitting in the lounge, resting his chauffeur cap on his knee.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been flirting with Clay,” Lori laughed. “Trust you to spot a good-looking male specimen from a mile away.”
“But he’s so cute,” Jasmine protested. “And very sweet. Pity I couldn’t talk to him longer. His boss is always calling on him to run errands.”
Lori noticed Sophie approach and sit down next to him. As the two talked, it struck her that Clay no longer wore his boyish smile, like the first time she’d met him. Sophie seemed to be trying to cheer him up.
“Why is he looking so down and out?” Lori asked Jasmine, who was still eyeing Clay like a lovesick teenager.
“He wasn’t paid his wages yesterday,” Jasmine said without looking up. “Apparently Brenda lost big at the poker tables when they were in Las Vegas, and he thinks she might be short of cash right now.”
“So what’s he going to do?” Lori asked.
“She convinced him she’s going to win the tournament, and then she’ll have plenty to pay him with.”
By now, it looked like Sophie had succeeded in cheering up Clay somewhat. As they got up to leave, Clay saw Jasmine looking at him and waved at her. Hazel, Lori and Rosie teased Jasmine by all jumping up and waving back and wearing silly smiles.
“You’ve all just spoiled my moment!” Jasmine complained as the other three fell over each other with mirth.
For the rest of the afternoon, Lori met with Nick’s staff and her family about tournament business. All reported that the tournament was going smoothly and without hiccups. The contestants had been most complimentary about the organization, and even Kermit had grudgingly acknowledged to Hazel that the catering was the best he’d ever had at any tournament. Apart from the dark shadow cast over the event by Alvin’s death, the hard work everyone had put into making it a success seemed to be paying off.
For Lori, that meant the renovations at Emerald Forest were in the bag and well deserved.
She was just about to finish up and go home when her phone rang.
“Hi, Bob,” she answered. “You’re on my list of people to call.” She thought it might be too early for him to have received feedback on Alvin’s autopsy but decided to ask anyway. “Have you heard anything from the coroner’s office?”
“You’ve just made a lot of work for me, Lori Whitewood,” Chief Winters said, and Lori’s relaxed mood dissolved into a slow tension as he spoke. “You better come over here right now.” Before Lori could answer, he’d already hung up.
Chapter Ten
Lori made the distance between the Misty Hills Inn and the Fennelmoore police station in record time. She was so winded from walking at a trot that she had to sit down on a bench in front of the building to catch her breath before entering.
Two persons were sitting opposite Chief Winters’s desk when Lori got to his office. One was a graying, slender woman elegantly dressed and wearing rimless specs. She stood up as Lori entered. The other person was Kermit, clenching his jaw and glaring at Lori.
“Lori, this is Dr. Miriam Jones, the coroner who did the autopsy on Alvin. Of course, you know Kermit,” Chief Winters said.
“Nice to meet you, Lori,” Dr. Jones said, and for a moment, Lori thought from the sound of her voice that they’d met somewhere before. Kermit merely nodded at Lori as she greeted him. Chief Winters drew up a chair for her.
“Lori, I wanted you to join us since you were the person who found Alvin dead at Eagle Rock,” Chief Winters said tersely.
Lori nodded a thank-you.
“Dr. Jones drove here especially to deliver Alvin Parkinson’s autopsy report so she could explain it in person to us,” Chief Winters said. “Please begin, Dr. Jones.”
Miriam opened a file on her lap and put a sheet from it on the desk. “As per your request, we did an autopsy on Alvin Parkinson to confirm the cause of death, which you indicated was a suspected overdose. This here is the toxicology report from the pathologist at our office. We were able to arrive at the results quickly because it’s an open-and-shut case.”
Doctor Jones looked at Lori as if she were addressing her directly.
“The cause of death was not the prescription tranquilizers Alvin was taking, as suspected. In fact, he hardly had any of them in his system. What we did find, however, was a massive dose of a drug normally used to sedate surgery patients. In effect, Alvin was poisoned.”
“In other words, murdered,” Chief Winters threw in.
“Well, that’s your department, Chief. I can’t say that,” Miriam said. “But from the evidence, it looks like Alvin was surprised by the murderer. There are no signs of a struggle having taken place.”
“I hope this isn’t going to result in a witch hunt,” Kermit said. “I still think there’s a simple explanation for all of this.”
“Did anyone find a syringe at the place Alvin died?” Miriam asked. “That is the only way it could have gotten into his system.”
“We thoroughly checked the area where he was found, and there was no sign of anything like that,” Chief Winters said with confidence. “The only thing we found was the bottle and a number of pills lying around,” he added.
“We found a needle prick mark on his body,” Miriam said as she spread out a stack of photos for them to see. She pointed at a photo of a section of skin on which a circle had been drawn with a thick red marker. “It’s located here, in his neck, below his ear. It’s a very rough jab done at an odd angle, from the back. He couldn’t have administered himself. Given the point of entry of the needle, he would have died in seconds. The person who did this must’ve known exactly where to inject him to cause the victim to die almost instantly.”
Covering her mouth with her one hand, Lori willed herself to look at the other photos. She wondered how it felt to be a photographer who did this for a living, day after day, photographing dead people. There were photos of his hands, his face, and three or four showing the puncture mark in his neck. She recognized two photos of Alvin lying naked on his stomach on the examination table, and stood up to take a closer look at the crossword tattoo that covered his back. She opened her mouth to say something, but Miriam spoke first.
“Yes, that tattoo’s interesting…”
“He must have been obsessed with crosswords,” Chief Winters interrupted her. “I’ve seen tattoos of girls, guns, and more than a few words best not mentioned in decent company, but never a crossword.”
“People put their dreams on their bodies in ink,” Kermit said. “Alvin was living the dream.”
Miriam pursed her lips, clearly not impressed by the interruptions. “It seems the tattoo may have been altered recently. Most of it shows a slight fading, but the top part is still reddish, as if he’d had work done to it recently. However, that tattoo looks like it had been crudely done, with an ordinary needle or sharp instrument.”
“Do you know anything about it, Kermit?” Chief Winters asked.
Kermit shrugged. “Could be. Alvin was impulsive, like all
these big deal crossworders are. And it’s not like I saw his back every day, you know,” he added, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Well, that’s all the evidence I can give you,” Miriam said, handing the file to Chief Winters. “I’ll leave the rest for you to investigate.”
Lori’s head was spinning as she waited for everyone to say goodbye and leave so she could talk alone to Chief Winters about the autopsy report. She was burning to know how he was going to go about investigating further, now that it was confirmed that Alvin had been murdered. But at that moment, she felt Miriam touch her arm. “Why don’t you walk with me downstairs, Lori?” she asked, and Lori reluctantly followed her out Chief Winters’s office.
As soon as they were out of earshot from the chief’s office, Miriam turned to Lori. It seemed she had a story to tell.
“I knew your mother. Her name was Annabelle, wasn’t it? I was the doctor who delivered you.”
Lori stared at her in disbelief.
“Years ago, I was a young doctor at the hospital where you were born, fresh out of medical school. Of course, that was many years before I took the job I have now at the coroner’s office. I was on duty when your mother arrived. I remember her spirited courage, since it wasn’t an easy birth.” She smiled. “It’s so good to see you, thirty-two years later. How are your parents? Do you have any siblings?”
Lori looked back at Chief Winters’s office door, hoping he’d call her name and rescue her, because this was heading into painful territory.
“My parents are both deceased. They died in a car accident when I was seven. I was brought up by my aunt Hazel and Granny Fae.”
Miriam looked shocked and drew her breath in deeply. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Lori. I’d spent a lot of time with your mother in the months before you were born and got to know her well.”
Lori nodded, thinking of ways to end their encounter. “It’s a small world, I suppose.” Then she made an attempt to change the topic of discussion. “Thank you also for processing the autopsy results so quickly. We really needed to get finality on this, for the sake of the tournament.”
Miriam opened her mouth to say something, but stopped from doing so. Lori could see she needed to talk about it more, but she was glad Miriam was saving it for another time. Instead Miriam smiled and jingled her car keys.
“It’s my job. Only a pleasure if I could help. I hope the police get to the bottom of it quickly. Goodbye, Lori. Perhaps we’ll meet again.” With that she turned and left.
Back in Chief Winters’s office, Lori found him poring over the autopsy report.
“I’m sending Ray to cordon off the room where Alvin stayed so we can search it for clues,” Bob said. “This seems like a Pandora’s box of demons you’ve opened now, Lori, and I hope to heaven there’s a clear, simple solution to it.”
“I’m afraid we’ve already packed up all his things,” Lori said. “His mom needed a place to stay and…”
She paused as Chief Winters put down his pen and covered his face with his hands.
“You did what?”
“Bob, this wasn’t a crime until twenty minutes ago, right? In fact, if it wasn’t for me, you’d never have suspected anything untoward in the first place,” Lori said, miffed by his attitude. “I bet you haven’t even spoken to Camelia yet, have you?”
“All right, all right, calm down now,” Bob said without answering her question. “Like I say, we’ll probably settle this one quickly since we already have a suspect. I’ll go over to the inn and have a few words with this Camelia woman. It all goes well, she’ll ’fess up, and it’ll all be wrapped up by morning.” He scratched among the heaps of documentation that haphazardly covered his desk. “I must have that note she wrote Alvin here somewhere…”
“It seems a lot of people would gain from Alvin’s death,” Lori said, watching papers fall off the edge of his desk as Bob searched for Camelia’s letter. “I wonder if this wasn’t about money as well.”
“Now listen, Detective Whitewood, leave the police work right here when you walk out that door,” Chief Winters said as he located the note he was looking for. “If I need more leads, I’ll call you.” He looked at the photo Lori was surreptitiously holding on to. “Please leave that photo you’re thinking of smuggling out of here on my table. And on your way out, please tell Ray to come see me.”
“Bob, I really think you need to listen to what I have to say. I noticed—”
“I’ll call you, Lori, okay?”
Swallowing her frustration and dumping the photo on his desk, Lori jumped up and marched out of Bob’s office. She walked straight to Ray’s desk in the main office, tore a page from his desk blotter and wrote seven letters down on it. “Please buy your boss a filing system, Ray,” Lori said as she folded up the paper and put it in her pocket. She made her voice loud enough for the chief to hear. “Look at the poor man’s desk. He needs help desperately.”
It took Lori until near dinnertime to simmer down and process the meeting at Bob Winters’s office. After she’d essentially done his dirty work, she thought as she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, one would have hoped for at least a thank-you. It wasn’t like she was expecting a bunch of red roses, or even a glass of that fancy whisky he kept in his drawer. But he hadn’t even had the decency to acknowledge her input.
Now that the fact had been established that Alvin was murdered, the decent thing to do was to go break the news to his mother next door at the cottage. Opening the window and finding that a chilly wind was blowing, Lori put on a cardigan and walked outside. She had just enough time to run this rather daunting errand before dinner, and she wanted to be sure she wasn’t late for that.
When she reached the cottage door, she heard two voices talking inside. She knocked, announced herself and then pushed open the door. Daisy was sitting in an armchair with Camelia kneeling beside her, holding both the old lady’s hands in hers.
“I’m terribly sorry for I’m intruding. I’ll come back at a more convenient time,” Lori said, taken aback at seeing Camelia. She began reversing out of the room.
“No, no, you’re not intruding, my child,” Mrs. Parkinson said. “You know Camelia, don’t you? She’s come to offer her condolences.”
As Lori moved closer to them, she saw Camelia’s bloodshot eyes, as if she’d been crying. Her mascara had smeared and she was holding a smudged handkerchief in her one hand. She looked at Camelia’s ultra-short dress and revealing top. Was Camelia faking it, or was her sorrow for real?
“We haven’t been introduced, but I know Lori’s one of Kermit’s people,” Camelia said as the two girls awkwardly shook hands.
Lori’s courage to break the news of Alvin’s murder suddenly evaporated when she looked at Daisy. Her eyes spoke of a deep-set pain at having lost her only son. She looked much more affected now than when Lori had first seen her. She felt tears of sympathy well up in her eyes.
“I just came to see how you were, Daisy,” Lori said. “Are you coping okay?”
Daisy managed a faint smile. “I’m fine, thank you, Lori. Ruth—Mrs. Barkley—is taking such good care of me. She’s here every five minutes to check up on whether I need anything.”
“Well, you have my number, right? Please call me if there’s anything you need,” Lori said, intending to leave right away.
“Don’t forget about that dinner invite,” Daisy said, winking at her.
“No, most definitely not,” Lori said, making a mental note to mention it at dinnertime.
“I have to leave too,” Camelia said, and both walked out together after saying farewell. They walked in silence up to the garden gate. Lori was ready to walk back home when she noticed Camelia hesitating.
“Lori, I heard from Kermit that you were the person who found Alvin, in the fields outside town,” Camelia began. “I have a huge favor to ask. Do you mind showing me the spot, please?”
Lori nodded, totally taken aback. She looked at her watch. There was still time before the sun set. It
crossed her mind that she was going for a walk to a deserted place with a suspected murderer, but something willed her to accompany Camelia there.
“Sure, we can walk there. It’s not far.”
On the footpath, Lori walked in front of Camelia, and neither spoke a word until they reached Eagle Rock.
Lori pointed out the place against the rock where Alvin had sat. The grass was still flattened, as if he’d been sitting there until recently. Much to her surprise, Camelia spontaneously sat down in exactly the same spot.
“What a beautiful view,” Camelia said, looking into the distance, where the last rays of the sun lit up the landscape in shades of yellow and orange. She looked up at Lori. “I have a feeling this is your favorite place to relax and think about things, too.”
Not knowing what else to do, Lori sat down next to Camelia.
“Yes, I must confess, it is. I come here often when I’m in need of quiet reflection,” Lori said, feeling a bit uncomfortable about sharing something so intimate with a stranger. She looked in the direction of Emerald Forest, suddenly remembering her deal with Mayor Riley. “That forest over there’s a magical place too. Alvin would have loved it, I think.” She pointed in the direction of Emerald Forest.
Camelia rested her head on her knee.
“I miss him so much, Lori.”
“I heard you guys had recently split up?” Lori ventured.
“You probably read that in the press, right?” Camelia said. She sounded resigned to having her private life exposed by the tabloids and gossip magazines. “In the beginning, we both loved being a celebrity couple. Every picture of us together, every word we said went viral on social media. Everyone speculated about which exotic location we’d get married in, what the names of our kids would be. But as time went by, we started losing trust in each other as the lies and twisted facts in the media multiplied. On top of that, Alvin had been behaving strangely these past few weeks. He started finding excuses not to go to parties where he knew the paparazzi would be. Then, out of the blue, he messaged me and said it was over. No explanation, nothing. I was in a frenzy. One night I was drunk and wrote him a really, really nasty letter. I didn’t mean what I wrote. He never responded.” Tears streamed down her cheeks and her voice broke up. “I don’t know if that contributed to his state of mind. I feel so, so very guilty about this. I never dreamed he’d commit suicide. Giving up wasn’t like him.”
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