I looked down at the shotgun lying between us. Moving as carefully as if I were dismantling a bomb, I picked it up. “Do you mind if I put this somewhere else?”
He waved his hand. “You can bury it in the sand, for all I care. I don’t want it now.”
Because I feared the gun was still loaded, I took it around the corner into my walk-in pantry. Wishing the pantry had a door, I laid it on an empty bottom shelf. A quick peek through the back parlor revealed that Theo still kept Minnie company in the sunroom. Good. I didn’t want him involved in whatever Zack had come here to do. But since he had surrendered the gun, I assumed he planned nothing violent.
When I returned to the kitchen, I asked, “Why did you want the gun in the first place?”
“Dawn texted me to say Christian had been in an accident. I knew then he’d gone to meet you.” Zack shut his eyes. “And I knew in my gut he had been run off the road as a warning. I was afraid I’d be next. When I walked past your boyfriend’s pickup and saw the gun, it seemed like a sign. I grabbed it and put it in the trunk of a car I borrowed from Tina Kapoor’s assistant.”
At that inopportune moment, Minnie let out a deafening series of whistles, followed by a long series of “lalalalalalalala.”
Zack sat up as if he had been electrified. “What the hell’s that?”
“Minnie, my talking bird,” I said. “She’s in the sunroom.” I saw no reason to tell him Theo was in the house, too.
He pushed the stool back and stood up. “Maybe we should go out there to talk.”
“Maybe I should call the police first.”
“Are you afraid of me? That’s ridiculous.” Zack gestured with one hand, brushing against the brochures scattered on the kitchen island.
I suddenly remembered what was on the notepad. “You can’t blame me for being a little afraid.” To divert his attention, I stacked the brochures into a neat pile.
“It’s me and Christian who should be afraid,” he replied.
“Speaking of Christian, I’m surprised you’re not at the hospital.”
“There are other ways to protect my friend than sitting at his hospital bedside.”
“Why do you and he need protecting?” I moved my hand toward the notepad. I didn’t want him to see the word POISON beside Sienna’s name.
“What’s this?” Zack snatched the notepad from me.
My mind raced as I thought of how I could protect myself and Theo if I had to. Before I could come up with a defense scenario, Zack shocked me by bursting into laughter.
With a last guffaw, Zack looked up from my list. “You have been busy, haven’t you? Digging around for dirt, like you dug around and found Sienna’s bones.”
“Which I suspect one of you buried there. Or maybe all of you did.”
“What else do you suspect?” Zack appeared calm.
“The other day, Joel admitted at breakfast how your Bramble friends used a special bird call to alert each other. A signal to let everyone know it was safe to run off and party. And you had these midnight parties pretty often. Of course, Gordon provided the wine. Wine that you and Sienna seemed to have overindulged in. She often became sick from her heavy drinking. But then, Sienna was a petite girl; alcohol would work faster on her than on you. I also know not all of these late-night parties were held in the woods at the BAS campus. Sometimes, Gordon drove the gang to the Sanderling farm in his family’s van.”
Zack shook his head. “Theo’s been talking to you. We were afraid he would. The little sneak. Always watching from the shadows, following us around. We caught him a couple of times, but it never stopped him from doing it again.”
“He was looking out for Sienna. And he was right to be worried. Sienna died two days after Theo went home. Poisoned by the baneberry wine she drank. But Theo couldn’t have saved her the night she died because all of you went off to Gordon’s farm, didn’t you? Theo wouldn’t have been able to follow.”
He sighed. “No. Theo didn’t have access to a car. Gordon’s farm was off limits to him. Even if he had followed us, there was nothing he could have done to save her. We tried. Believe me, we tried. All we could do was watch her die. How were we supposed to know baneberries were poisonous? Gordon said his family made wine out of all sorts of fruit, berries included.” His voice was filled with bitterness. “Too bad you weren’t there that summer with us. Sienna would still be alive. After all, you’re the berry expert, aren’t you?”
“I certainly would have stopped you from making baneberry wine. Who came up with the idea of making your own wine? I’m betting the plan was to drink it at the end of summer at your own private graduation party. Obviously held in the woods on Gordon’s property.”
“It was Gordon’s idea,” he said. “But he only wanted to make blackberry wine. The rest of us agreed later it would be more fun to make wines based on our berry nicknames.”
I pointed at the notepad he still held. “All the berries on that list grow in the region. Even if the harvest time was autumn, Gordon’s family would have had access to frozen berries. As for baneberry, it blooms in May and June. The timing would have been perfect.”
If someone had intended to kill the girl, this method was perfect, too.
He threw the notepad onto the counter. “Sienna drank her wine quickly that night. Even faster than me. I’ve never been so frightened in my life. Frightened and horrified. One minute she was laughing, having a good time. The next minute she was in convulsions. It wasn’t an easy death. Not easy at all.” Zack put his face in his hands.
After a long pause, I said, “Why didn’t you call the police? Or tell Gordon’s family?”
Zack lifted his head. “We were teenagers, except for Gordon. And we thought we’d be blamed for Sienna’s death. Plus, we’d been drinking almost as much as Sienna had that night. None of us were thinking straight. Sienna was dead. We couldn’t bring her back. But no one knew where we were. Gordon’s family was fast asleep in the farmhouse. They never had any idea we sometimes went on their property to party. And no one at the school suspected we were off campus. If we buried her body in the woods, who would ever know?”
“No one.” I paused a long time before adding, “Except for the six of you.”
He ran his hands over his shaved head. If he’d had hair, I suspected he would have been pulling it out. “If you only knew how many times I wished I had thrown myself in the lake that night, instead of Sienna’s clothes.”
“Whose idea was it to cover up her death? Was the decision unanimous?”
“Gordon wanted to call the police, but we wouldn’t let him. We acted like scared, stupid kids. Hell, we were scared, stupid kids. Dawn finally took charge. Gordon was wild with grief. He loved Sienna. Really loved her. And she loved him. He’d convinced her to transfer to Duluth College so they could be together. Their romance had become more than a summer fling.”
I wasn’t surprised Dawn had taken charge. As Gordon told me yesterday, she was nicknamed after the elderberry because she was the most mature one in their group. “You seem to believe Sienna’s death was an accident.”
He regarded me with horror. “Of course. My God, you don’t think one of us killed her?”
“Then why did you assume someone ran Christian off the road last night? Why did you need to take Ryan’s gun for protection?”
“I told you, I freaked out. I wasn’t thinking like a rational person.”
“That’s bull. You asked to see me because you wanted to confess the truth about Sienna’s death. When Christian was almost killed on the way to meet me, you automatically assumed someone was willing to do anything to stop him. And you’re worried you’ll be next.”
“Maybe.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Twenty years ago, the six of us agreed to take the secret of Sienna’s death to our grave. If the truth ever came out, it would tear our lives apart. We’d covered up our friend’s death, lied to the police, lied to Sienna’s family. We needed to keep silent. If one of us confessed, the others would be
implicated. And our lives have been ruined enough by that night. There was no purpose in completely destroying ourselves.”
“Then why are you willing to tell the truth now?”
He gave a hopeless shrug. “I can’t live with the guilt any longer. My sponsor believes my drinking problem grew worse because of what happened that summer. Of course, he doesn’t know the sickening truth. But he knows enough to realize something terrible occurred. And it’s not only my life that’s a wreck. Christian suffers from crippling depression. Gordon’s an obese shadow of his former self. Joel is filled with rage. Leah has an eating disorder.”
I thought back to Dawn’s confident demeanor and professional success. “Dawn seems to have thrived.”
“Why? Because she has an eye for textiles?” He snorted, as if my statement was hard to believe. “Dawn is a woman of extremes. Dangerous extremes. She chased after Gordon all summer. It never sunk in that he preferred Sienna to her.”
“But Leah pursued Gordon, too.”
“Not the same thing at all. Leah was turned on by Gordon. The same way she was turned on by me that summer. Dawn became obsessed.”
“Obsessed enough to stalk Gordon and his bride for the better part of a year?”
He shut his eyes, as if exhausted. “Yeah, Dawn harassed Gordon and his new wife. After she moved to Minnesota to be near Gordon, she believed they’d find a way to be together. Dawn had been royally pissed off when she learned Sienna planned to transfer to Gordon’s college. After Sienna died, she thought she finally had a chance with him.”
“Zack, it looks to me like Dawn had a strong motive to want Sienna dead.”
“But none of us knew Sienna had decided to move to Minnesota until a couple of days before that last party. And we began making the wine weeks earlier, back in June. Right after Amanda Dobson left. I swear, Sienna’s death was a tragic accident.”
I recalled the Chaplin murder trial I had to sit through for the better part of a year, particularly the chilling testimony from the betrayed Evangeline Chaplin. She’d been serene and confident as she’d testified how she had no choice but to poison her husband with arsenic when she learned he was having an affair. And her composure never wavered, even when various experts described how brutally painful a death caused by arsenic was for its victim.
“You don’t understand how killers think, Zack. I had a front-row seat to a murder trial and you’d be surprised at what people can convince themselves of. Especially if they’re already unbalanced. Dawn hounded Gordon and his bride until they divorced. Doesn’t that prove how sick she was? And probably still is.”
Zack glanced up as the sound of Minnie laughing like a hyena met our ears. She’d picked up her latest imitation after watching an Animal Channel documentary with me.
“If all of you knew Dawn was harassing Gordon and his wife,” I continued, “why wasn’t she charged with anything?”
“You still don’t get it. We share a secret that could destroy us. That’s a lot of power to have over each other. Gordon knew right away it was Dawn who was behind the calls, the notes, the vandalism. She even admitted it when he confronted her. Gordon was so desperate he contacted the rest of us to see if we could talk some sense into her.”
“I assume that didn’t work.”
“If Dawn couldn’t have Gordon, no one else would, either. Gordon did threaten to report her to the police. But she swore to tell the authorities what really happened the night Sienna died. Gordon backed off and kept quiet. He let her destroy his marriage.” His expression grew even bleaker. “You may have noticed he never remarried. He doesn’t dare.”
I had no idea how this group had the arrogance to call Theo the odd one. Sienna’s friends seemed as strange as Leticia the Lake Lady. “Someone in your group was willing to kill Christian in order to stop him from talking to me. I think it’s Dawn. She’s shown how unbalanced she is.”
“She’s not the only one,” Zack said. “Joel has a violent temper. We even nicknamed him after the chokeberry because he tried to choke Gordon when we were BAS students.”
This startled me so much I knocked over my empty juice glass. “What? Joel told me he was named after the chokeberry because he choked on a fish bone.”
Zack rolled his eyes. “He lied. Joel got the name after he attacked Gordon during one of our drinking parties. It took four of us to stop him from literally choking Gordon to death. We weren’t surprised, though. Joel adored Sienna. He worshipped the ground she walked on. But she chose Gordon.”
Shades of the Chaplin murder. “Then Joel could have killed her out of jealousy.”
“Looking back, I wonder if Joel’s anger was more about injured pride than jealousy. Joel comes from a wealthy family. The stereotypical rich boy who’s had everything he wanted from the day he was born. Until Gordon took Sienna away from him.” Zack gave me a weary look. “Joel never forgave Gordon. I don’t think he forgave Sienna, either. And he hated Gordon after that. Oh, he tried to hide it. He acted as if losing Sienna was no big deal. However, Joel has a big ego, and a temper to match. Not a good combo. It’s too bad. When he’s in the right mood, Joel’s a lot of fun to be around.”
I found that hard to believe, but my standards for friendship were obviously higher than Zack’s. “It looks like either Joel or Dawn might be willing to kill to prevent the truth about Sienna from coming to light.”
“It’s Joel and Dawn who have always kept the rest of us in line. Late last night, they sat Leah and me down and warned us not to say anything.” His voice lowered, as if they were in the room listening. “Both of them were against us attending the BAS centenary. But Christian and I needed to come back for closure. Leah, too. When they learned we were coming, Joel and Dawn decided to return as well. They were afraid the rest of us would say something incriminating when we got here and the memories flooded back.” His laugh sounded more like a sob. “And they were right. Especially with Sienna’s burial site being discovered after all these years. It can’t be a coincidence. Sienna wanted you to find her. Sienna wants the truth to come out.”
I didn’t tell him Theo also shared that belief. As for me, I believed both Joel and Dawn had a reason to kill Sienna. She was Dawn’s chief rival for Gordon’s affections. And revenge against Gordon may have been Joel’s motive for murder. After all, how better to wound your enemy than by destroying something he loves?
“Marlee, I can’t live with this threat hanging over me any longer. I came here to give you the gun back and to ask you to call your police friends. This has gone on long enough. Christian may die because none of us had the guts or decency to be honest. It stops today.” He clasped his hands before him, as if praying. “And I might need a little police protection until they figure out who ran Christian off the road.”
“When they do, I’m sure it will be the same person who poisoned Sienna.”
“I told you, the baneberry wine was a terrible accident,” he said. “None of us knew those berries were poisonous.”
“That’s not true.”
Zack regarded me with a hint of alarm. “What are you talking about?”
“You keep forgetting about the eighth member of your group: Amanda Dobson. She was a botany major in college. All of you mentioned at breakfast how she wouldn’t be attending the centenary because she’s off on a research trip. You had a berry expert with you that summer, at least in the beginning. Did Amanda know about your wine-making plans before she left?”
He seemed unsettled. “Gordon suggested making blackberry wine the week before she left. But Amanda never knew about our plan to make berry wines based on our nicknames. We didn’t decide on that until after she’d been sent home with a bad case of poison ivy.”
I tapped the counter nervously. “Way too convenient. The one person who could have warned everyone about the toxicity of baneberries finds herself shipped home. And because of poison ivy, no less. I’m no botany major, but even I recognize poison ivy when I see it. How did someone as schooled in plants as Am
anda Dobson fall into a bed of poison ivy?”
“They were horsing around.”
“Who?”
Zack looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to jog his memory. “Sienna, Joel, Gordon, Amanda, and Christian. They went hiking in the woods on the BAS campus after dinner. I was sitting around the fire pit with Dawn and Leah when they got back. Amanda was upset, but the others were laughing. They thought it was funny Amanda got pushed into a patch of poison ivy. She was always warning people to watch out for it.”
“Wait a minute. You said she was pushed.”
“Yeah, they were chasing each other around. I think Joel had a frog he was scaring the girls with. Anyway, she said she was pushed. I don’t remember by who.”
“It was Joel.” Theo stood in the doorway. And he gripped Ryan’s shotgun with both hands. “Joel pushed her.”
Zack shot to his feet, causing his stool to topple over. “What is he doing here?”
Trying to remain calm, I walked over to Theo. “Give me the gun, Theo. It belongs to Ryan. He’ll be happy you found it for him.”
Theo glanced down at the weapon. “It was in that little room in the hallway. I don’t like guns. But I heard Zack. I thought I might need the gun in case he tried to hurt you.”
“Thank you. But no one is going to hurt anyone today,” I said as Theo handed the shotgun to me. This time, I placed it in a nearby broom closet, which, mercifully, had a door.
“Why is he here?” Zack asked again.
“Because he’s my friend and I invited him.” Which was more than I could say for Zack. I turned to Theo, who stood watching Zack as if he was were an enemy combatant. “You said it was Joel who pushed Amanda Dobson into the poison ivy. How do you know that?”
“I saw Sienna walk into the woods with the others,” he replied, “so I followed to keep her safe. Joel used to bother her sometimes. I wanted to make sure he didn’t bother her again. He didn’t that time because Gordon was there. But Joel bothered Amanda.”
Blackberry Burial Page 25
