by Leslie Caine
I wasn’t sure how to respond, or why Eleanor seemed so worried that Fitz and Amelia were having what looked like a pleasant conversation. Maybe she wanted me to ask both Michelle’s and Amelia’s permission to wear the necklace. The jewelry no longer felt worth the effort; I could simply wear blue panties and borrow a friend’s nail polish.
“I’m surprised that you invited Fitz Parker,” Eleanor remarked.
“You knew that we took Michelle’s advice and hired Fitz as our wedding planner, didn’t you?” I asked her.
“Yes, but I didn’t realize he had anything to do with the shower. I haven’t seen him in ages. I had better run some interference.” She set her wineglass on a side table.
My first thought was that there must be lingering animosity between Amelia and Fitz from a previous squabble of some sort, but then I reconsidered, knowing about Amelia’s struggles with mental health. “Is she having a bad day?” I asked gently before Eleanor could rush away.
“Every day is a bad day when you have a psychosis,” she snapped. Then she smiled, touched my arm warmly and said, “I’m sorry, Erin. That was uncalled for. What I should have said is, yes, it’s been an extremely bad day.”
“I’m sorry that—”
“Excuse me,” she told me, already walking toward Fitz and Amelia.
Damn. I knew how to fix shoddy interiors, not relationships with future in-laws. Steve, along with our dear, loyal friends, was always assuring me that she’d love me once she got to know me. She was clearly avoiding every opportunity to get to know me, however, so I had no choice but to let our relationship evolve at its own glacial pace.
Fitz caught my gaze and lifted his coffee cup as if in an unspoken toast. Amelia appeared to flinch when she spotted her mother approaching. Curiously, she took a step away from Fitz.
I ventured outside, to visit with some of our guests who’d chosen to be in the back yard where we had four strategically placed outdoor heaters to balance out the nippiness of Colorado’s typically brisk night air in late September. It was indeed chilly, but beautiful. A recording of a local jazz ensemble was playing on the audio system. The skies had grown pitch black, except for the sprinkling of starlight. We’d echoed the night sky with strings of small white bulbs along the spruces that bordered the property lines. I joined a small cluster of friends near the heater in a back corner of the yard. My heart was overjoyed with the beauty and rightness of this place and time, and of the union that I was about to enter into. My friends, I noticed, were starting to collect their belongings and to remark about the lateness of the hour.
Just as I began to gush about how honored and happy I was that they’d come, I was surprised to see a flash of turquoise below the street light; Aunt Bea had departed so abruptly that she hadn’t even said goodbye to me.
Just then Steve emerged from the house. I could tell from his gait that he was angry. I hoped he was perturbed over Drew’s behavior and not by his conversation with Bea. He spotted me and joined us. He made a good show of chatting effortlessly as we wished everyone well.
Several minutes later, we had clearly transitioned into the winding down phase of the party—thanking and saying goodbye to guests.
We soon found ourselves alone on the deck. “What did Aunt Bea want?” I asked.
“To put me in her will.”
“Really?”
“On the condition that I boot Drew Benson out of my life.”
Uh, oh. That was quite an inappropriate demand, especially for an honorary relative. “You said no?”
“Of course I said no.”
I nodded, not wanting to admit to myself that I would be happier, too, if he gave Drew the boot. I decided to ignore all things related to Drew Benson for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow, however, I vowed, I would have a full, open discourse with Steve about my misgivings over his best friend.
I shivered a little, and Steve put his arms around me. Then he nuzzled my neck, and next thing I knew, he was kissing me passionately. Monday at the latest, we would have that discussion about whatever my minor concern was about what’s his name.
“There’s our lovebirds!” a man called out.
We broke off our kiss and turned toward the house. It was Steve’s dad, George, crossing the lawn, his mother and his sister Amelia a step behind. “You’re heading home?” I asked. The three of them lived about an hour’s drive away. “Audrey was completely sincere when she offered you the use of a guest room, you realize.”
“Oh, we don’t want to impose,” his mom trilled. “George snores.”
“I can’t be all that loud. I sleep right through it.”
I looked at Amelia, who had her typical bearing of staring into space. “Amelia, I feel like I barely spoke to you tonight. I looked for you a couple of times, but—”
“She and I were upstairs, going through some of your design magazines together,” his mother interjected.
“Not all of the time,” Amelia corrected. Her speech patterns typically had a childlike quality, but now her words were also a bit slurred. “I had a great time mingling with your guests. It was a nice party, Erin.”
“Let’s go, George,” his mom said. “It’s a long drive. We should have left ages ago. But he was having too good of a time.”
“You were, too. You seemed to be yacking your head off.”
Eleanor shot him a glare, but then donned her typical fake smile as she met my gaze. “Thank you for inviting us, Erin,” she said to me, then gave Steve a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Given Amelia’s interest in my design magazines, I asked if she would like me to take her to the Design Center in Denver some afternoon next month. “Absolutely,” she said. “That would be fun.” She glanced back at the house and said, “I hope nobody gets hurt.”
“At the party?” I asked, confused.
“Drew and Mark were roughhousing a little,” my future mother-in-law explained. “Good night.” She took Amelia’s arm and ushered her toward the street, waving off the valets that Audrey had hired.
Steve’s dad gave me a big hug. “You’ll both get used to each other,” he said in my ear. He gave Steve a more manly hug, which involved slapping him on the back, then strode after the women. Steve and I dutifully followed them along the path in Audrey’s side yard, but we were both taking our time.
Steve pulled me toward his chest the moment we could no longer see them walk away. “Sorry about my parents,” Steve said quietly. Standing this close, with our arms wrapped around each other, our bodies fit together so perfectly.
“They seemed to be a little unhappy with each other just now. Your mom obviously doesn’t care for your choice in brides.”
“Sure she does. My mom wants me to be happy. She knows that you make me happy. She was probably just worried about Amelia. She’s been having another downward spiral. Dad told me that she’s been hearing voices again, that she thinks people are out to kill her.”
“That must be so hideous for—”
A thump resounded from inside the house.
“He’s having a seizure!” Audrey’s voice cried.
“Call nine-one-one!” another voice cried.
Steve and I rushed inside through the front door. Fitz Parker was lying in the middle of the foyer floor, his body flailing in violent convulsions, his eyes rolling back in his head, and his face crimson.
Chapter 5
“Is anyone here a doctor?” I cried.
Silence. I scanned the worried faces. Jim and Julie were the only doctors we’d invited, as best I could remember, and they’d already left.
I dropped to my knees beside Fitz and, despite my trembling hands, unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt. His eyes were rolling back and his body was twitching. Steve knelt by Fitz’s head on the opposite side of me.
“Erin,” Audrey called, holding the phone out to me. “I called nine-one-one. An ambulance is on its way. Come talk to the dispatcher.” I had no idea why Audrey had singled me out, but feeling too discombobulated to
argue, I rose and accepted the phone.
“This is Erin Gilbert,” I said into the phone, allowing Audrey to usher me into the kitchen.
“My name is Thomas. I’d like to give the paramedics as much information as possible. Do you know if Mr. Parker has taken any drugs or has any medical conditions?”
“No, I don’t. He had too much to drink tonight, though. But the last time I saw him, he was halfway across the room drinking coffee, and he looked fine. Maybe twenty or thirty minutes ago? I didn’t speak to him. So I guess I can’t really say for sure if he was okay then or not. He nodded at me and gave me a thumbs up, though.”
“Is he wearing any kind of an alert tag? A chain around his neck, or a wrist or ankle bracelet?”
“I don’t think so. I loosened his collar, so I know he wasn’t wearing a chain. But let me...” My voice faded as I tried to make my way to the foyer. The cluster of guests who remained blocked the doorway. Everyone’s faces looked pale and despairing. My heart was pounding so hard, I could hardly breathe.
The sirens were loud and a pair of vehicles had just then pulled up front. Red flashing lights were distorted by the cut glass in the sidelight.
“What happened?” I asked, as I weaved my way through the crowd.
Michelle was sobbing. Audrey turned toward me, her face sheet white. “His heart stopped.” I brushed past them. Drew was giving Fitz mouth to mouth. Steve was pumping Fitz’s chest to keep his heart going. Mark was kneeling by Fitz’s feet, watching the others work.
Someone pounded on the door. “That’s the paramedics,” I said.
“They’re too late,” Michelle cried. “They got here too late.”
It was almost 11 a.m. when I awoke in a double bed at the Marriott. In my still-half-asleep daze, I barely pieced together the ordeal of the long, dismal night that I’d endured, with three or four hours spent at the police station. Audrey and I had been told that her house was off-limits until the investigators could determine the cause of death. In our zombie-like state, she and I decided to get a hotel room, despite Steve urging us to instead go to our home, and Drew offering to let Audrey use our guest room while he slept on the sofa.
I hoped that the investigators would discover that Fitz’s death was from natural causes. His beet-red face, however, had seemed anything but natural. Those horrible images would be burned into my memory banks for some time to come.
There was a knock on the hotel door. Audrey opened the bathroom door a little and said, “Can you get that?”
“Got it,” I replied, already in the process of working the safety lock. I opened the door to my friend, Sergeant Linda Delgardio. She was in her uniform, and it was clear from the expression on her face that she was here on business. I was only slightly surprised to see her; we’d spoken last night at the police station and, hoping she’d be my contact person, I’d told her that Audrey and I would be here at the Marriott.
“Hey, Erin,” she said. “I wish I’d been able to come to your party last night.”
“So do I. Maybe things would have turned out differently. Come on in, Linda.”
“Is Audrey here?”
“Trying to make myself presentable,” she said as she emerged from the bathroom, “with mixed results. Hi, Linda. Good to see you again.”
“You, too. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you. We got the results of the autopsy on the guest who died here at your party. His stomach contents reveal that he ingested cyanide last night.”
“Dear God,” Audrey said. “How? Are all of our other guests okay?”
“They’re all fine.”
“Thank goodness for that much,” I said, half-heartedly. Even though I knew I was being petty in comparison to a young man’s death, I was filled with ungracious anger at the horrendous timing. It was so unfair that this had happened at Steve’s and my wedding shower. Our marriage would be forever linked with a murder. I hadn’t known Fitz well and wasn’t close to him. He’d invited himself to our party, insisting that his attendance at the shower would help with his planning as he gained inside knowledge. Audrey, too, was cheated by having this happen in her home, at a party she was hosting. The best party hostess I knew was forever going to have been the person who hosted the party where someone died.
“Was the poison in something he ate?” Audrey asked. “Or drank?”
“The coroner can’t be certain, because the catering staff was washing the glasses and cups continuously. He believes it was probably dissolved in liquid. And, due to time of death and his toxin levels, it was most likely the final thing that he drank.”
He’d been drinking Scotch. Then I’d offered him a cup of coffee. My stomach clenched. “Was it in his cup of coffee?” I asked.
“Probably,” Linda said. “That would fit with the coroner’s findings, and coffee is a strong flavor that can disguise the poison’s taste.”
“I feel…so…responsible,” I muttered. “I’m the one who told him he should be drinking coffee.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Erin,” Linda said. “One way or another, a determined killer would have found a way to poison him.”
Linda shifted her attention to Audrey. “You’re not going to be able to return to your house for another day or two.”
Audrey nodded solemnly. “Can we go over to the house and collect some personal items? Such as clothing?”
“Certainly. You’ll have to have a police escort with you, though, for the sake of our maintaining chain-of-evidence.”
“I suppose it will be hard to uncover much more evidence,” Audrey said, “given my over-achieving catering crew last night.”
“I can bring you over to your home right now, if you’d like,” Linda offered.
“That would be nice,” Audrey replied.
Linda grimaced a little. “Afterwards, we’re going to need to talk to both of you again at the stationhouse.”
I couldn’t quite suppress a groan. “Is Detective O’Reilly going to be in charge again?”
“I’m afraid so.”
I rubbed my now-aching forehead. “Don’t you have any other detectives in the Crestview police department?”
“We do. But he gets automatically assigned to you, now that you’ve established the unfortunate pattern of knowing the victim.”
“Which he always suspects is because I’m a serial killer.”
“I know better, though,” Audrey said.
“We all do,” Linda added. “Including O’Reilly. He’s just doing his job…in his own slightly abrasive way.”
“Thanks, Audrey. And Linda.” I sighed. “I can already guarantee you that I didn’t see anything suspicious last night.”
“Nor did I,” Audrey immediately chimed in.
“It might have looked as innocent as someone putting a spoonful of sugar into a cup of coffee. The service staff said several guests had coffee at one point or another.”
Over the years, I’d acquired the ability to shut my eyes and visualize how rooms would look after I’d redone them. Now I shut my eyes and tried to visualize our party guests as they’d been last night, searching my mind’s eye for white coffee cups.
“I can only remember seeing two guests for certain with coffee cups. I saw Fitz Parker stirring his cup. And I remember Drew Benson, holding a cup of coffee in his hand…and watching Fitz stir his coffee.” I thought about sabotaged sugar or cream. I supposed anyone could have dropped powdered poison into Fitz’s cup whenever he’d set it down.
“We do have one possible clue,” Linda said. “Do you know if any of your guests was wearing a sapphire necklace?”
“Yes, Amelia Sullivan, Steve’s oldest sister, was wearing one,” I said. “A large sapphire on a gold chain. Why?”
“We found it in the victim’s pocket. The chain had been broken.”
Chapter 6
We were quiet as Linda drove us to Audrey’s house in her patrol car. I’d already asked Linda to help me get my cat into her carrier so I could take her home; Hildi stayed where I st
ayed, and she and I would be back at Steve’s and my home tonight. Having chosen the back seat for Audrey’s sake, I focused my thoughts on the necklace, as opposed to worrying about acquiring germs from previous down-on-their-luck occupants in this car’s seat.
Had Amelia given the necklace to Fitz for some reason, maybe with the instructions that he was to surprise me with it before the wedding? Had she taken it off and left it for me, only to have Fitz pocket it? It was possible that Amelia had fidgeted with it until the chain broke, and that Fitz had pocketed it with good intentions. He might have volunteered to have it fixed, or had found it and meant to return it.
Amelia should know the answers, but her brain couldn’t always separate fact from fiction. Last night, Eleanor had said that Amelia was having an exceptionally bad day, although she’d seemed subdued but basically fine whenever we’d spoken. I hadn’t paid attention to what she’d been drinking. If Eleanor had seen her daughter holding an alcoholic beverage, that might explain Eleanor’s alarm when she’d seen Fitz and Amelia chatting. If she’d been imbibing last night on top of her meds, there might be little chance she knew how her necklace got into Fitz’s pocket.
“You don’t mind if I look around, do you?” Linda asked as she escorted us inside our house.
“No, go right ahead,” Audrey replied. “Erin, could you please go pick out a bottle of wine for me?”
“Sure thing.”
“That’s not going to interfere with the police investigation, is it?” she called to Linda, who’d donned plastic gloves. “I can take one of my bottles of wine from my cellar with me?”
“Yes, provided it’s unopened.”
I went downstairs into Audrey’s wine cellar and felt such a strong pang, I had to catch my breath. This was such a soul-cheering space. We’d enjoyed many a conversation seated at the French-café style table. With Fitz’s death last night, was Audrey ever going to feel secure and tranquil in her own house again? Would we be able to pull off a carefree, joyous wedding despite our wedding planner being murdered at our shower?
