Once Upon A Murder

by D E Dennis

  “I had been looking for a way to get to Preston when finally, the day I asked to meet him, Abby left her phone in her room while she hopped in the shower. I got his number and told him who I was and that I needed the shoe back.”

  Her mouth twisted. “He acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about.” Her voice turned mocking as she repeated what Preston had said to her. “What shoe? How did it get under his bed?” She shook her head. “He played me, and like an idiot, I believed him.”

  Monica put her arms around her. “He was trying to pretend his behavior was just a drunken mistake he didn’t remember so you wouldn’t be worried about meeting him alone.”

  “Yes.” She sniffled. “I told him I wanted to meet at the Little Pigs, somewhere in public, but he kept going on about how strange it would look for us to be seen together or for him to be passing me a seven-hundred-dollar shoe in a restaurant. He said if I really didn’t want anyone to know what I did, we should meet in private, where no one would see us. So, I agreed and texted him last minute to meet me in Siren Woods.”

  “What happened when you got there?” Michael asked softly.

  She shook her head roughly as her tears began anew. “He didn’t even bring the shoe! He got out of the car, leered at me, and said that I didn’t need to make up some dumb story about an abandoned shoe to see him.

  “We argued. I tried to reason with him. I begged him to just give me the shoe, but he was acting crazy. Drooling, literally drooling over me, and stumbling around. I knew he was drunk again, so when he came at me... and we both went down. I did what I had to do. I grabbed the nearest rock, hit him over the head with it and then I ran. I just ran and ran, leaving him groaning and heaving on the ground.”

  She hugged herself, crying in earnest. “I didn’t know I hit him hard enough to kill him. I just wanted him off me.” Monica softly stroked her hair. “But it’s still my fault. If I had called for help or gone back to check he was okay none of this would have happened. I thought I could be a princess for a night and this is what it got me.”

  Michael felt a piece of his heart chip off and wither away at those words. Ella lifted her head and their eyes locked. “I understand you have no choice but to call the police. I won’t fight. I have to take responsibility for what I did.”

  Michael blankly nodded and got to his feet.

  “Michael, wait—”

  He held up a hand and his sister halted in her tracks. “I don’t like it either, Mo,” he said gruffly. “But I have to.”

  Monica sniffed, hugging Ella tighter, and Michael forced himself to look away and marched out of the house. He closed the door softly behind him and dialed Samira’s number.

  “Michael,” she said frostily. “Nice to hear from you. Although, I was expecting to see you today in the Little Pigs—”

  “Mira.”

  “—but apparently my hint was too subtle for you. I’m only risking my job to help you. But if you don’t want to know that Bryan Charming and Lance Hart both left Fairy Tails the night Preston was killed then—”

  “Mira,” he said a little louder, cutting off her rant. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to the café, but there would have been no point.”

  “No point?”

  “Neither Lance nor Bryan killed Preston. I found the owner of the burner phone and she’s confessed. The case is closed.”

  There was a pause. “She?”

  He took a steadying breath and forced himself to say, “It was Ella Glass. She’s the killer.”

  IT WAS A FULL HOUSE by the time Samira and Spencer arrived. Abigail and Delilah had returned from school and Adalynn emerged from her room some time ago with Scrap and Luscious in tow. The cat had made its bed in Michael’s lap, but he didn’t bother to move him. The six of them had done nothing, said nothing, since Adalynn explained the situation to her daughters. They sat quietly, still as statues, until the bell chimed.

  Monica was the one who stood up to get the door. Michael heard the soft murmur of voices and then the two cops appeared.

  “Hello, Mrs. Ino. Hello, Ella.” Samira gave them both a tentative smile.

  Ella sighed and stood up, holding her arms out in front of her. “I’m ready.”

  Samira gently pushed her hands back down. “We’re not pulling out the handcuffs just yet, Ella. I’d like to talk first. Find out exactly what happened.”

  “But didn’t Michael tell you?”

  “I would like to hear it from you,” she said firmly. “Please. Sit down and start from the beginning. Would you like to do this in private?”

  Ella slowly sat down, shaking her head. “No, they can stay. They know everything anyway.”

  Ella launched into her tale, but the retelling took much longer this time with Spencer and Samira interrupting with questions.

  “Who is Mrs. Gudmor?”

  “Faralene Gudmor,” Ella said. “She lives in Fairy Tails on Pumpkin Lane. She’s really nice and has always treated me like a person.” She lowered her head. “She probably won’t forgive me for what I did.”

  “And Preston pretended to have no knowledge of the attack?” This question came from Spencer.

  Ella nodded.

  “So he agreed to meet and return the shoe but showed up empty-handed?”

  She nodded again. “He had other things on his mind that night.”

  Explains why he deleted the text conversation. Michael sat up as the thought struck him. Didn’t want the evidence on his phone. Michael cursed silently. It wasn’t enough for him to be a loathsome creep. He had to be smart too.

  “How did he seem when he got to the woods?” Samira asked.

  “He was so drunk,” Ella said, fists clenching in her lap. “To the point of being sick, but he didn’t let that stop him.”

  “Sick?”

  “Yeah. He looked queasy like he was moments away from throwing up, but he still kept making disgusting remarks and saying no one would have to know about us.”

  Samira nodded and wrote something down in her notepad while Michael’s mind churned. It was hard enough hearing this the first time and it wasn’t any easier the second.

  “At what point did he attack you?” Spencer asked.

  Ella shifted, sinking a little further into the seat. “Um... I think we had been arguing for about twenty minutes. He kept trying to get close to me, but I backed up and backed up... going further into the woods... and...” She paused, squeezing her eyes shut. “It was so dark,” she whispered.

  Ella didn’t go on and Spencer spoke up. “Miss Glass, if you could please describe the—”

  “Give her a minute!”

  All eyes flew off Ella. This sudden exclamation had come from Delilah, of all people, and to Michael’s surprise, Delilah reached across her lap and grabbed Ella’s thin hand, holding it tightly. “Just give her a minute, okay,” she said in a softer tone, and Spencer inclined his head.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Glass,” he said. “Please, take your time.”

  Ella took a few deep breaths, and after a few minutes had passed, she tried again. “He tried to kiss me, and I stumbled back and tripped over a rock. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me and I panicked. I felt around for the rock, grabbed it, and... I hit him.”

  Michael gazed at the Inos while Ella shared her story. Adalynn was crying softly, her shoulders shaking. Abigail wasn’t crying nor was she trying to comfort Ella like her twin. She sat still, her eyes glued to the floor, saying nothing.

  Samira closed her notebook and slipped it into the pocket of her jacket. “Thank you, Miss Glass. I know how difficult this must be for you, but you did the right thing coming forward. I believe you have a strong case for self-defense. But all the same, I’ll need you to come to the station with us.”

  Adalynn suddenly came alive. “What? Why?! You just said she acted in self-defense.”

  “I believe she did,” Samira replied calmly, “but there are still procedures to follow. We need to check her phone for the text conversation that
she had with the victim. She’ll need to give her statement again on tape and she’ll need to sign off that everything she has told us is true.”

  “She wouldn’t lie about this,” Delilah snapped.

  “Of course not. I didn’t mean to imply she wasn’t telling us the truth. I just mean we need to corroborate the evidence.”

  Adalynn scrambled to her feet. “She was the victim here, not him. I won’t have her treated like a criminal for defending herself against that sick animal!”

  “It’s okay, Adalynn,” Ella said resigned. “I know they’re just doing their jobs. I’ll come down to the station.”

  “No, Mom, do something,” Delilah cried.

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. He was focused on Adalynn and what she just said...

  Sick animal... sick animal... sick—

  “Sick!” he burst out, startling Luscious who yowled at this interruption to his sleep. “Samira, he was sick!”

  Samira blinked at him. “Yes, Michael. Ella explained that he was drunk.”

  He shook his head furiously. “No, don’t you see. Not drunk. He wasn’t under the influence; he was sick.” He cursed. “I was so stupid; I should have seen it before. Penelope Charming told us Preston wasn’t feeling well the day he died. He came down and asked for water to take anti-nausea medicine. Then hours later, he meets Ella and is clearly not doing any better. He’s swaying, drooling, moments away from throwing up.” He turned on Ella. “Ella, when you ran off, Preston was still conscious, right?”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, I heard him groaning and trying to get up.”

  “See. There it is.”

  Spencer scoffed. “There what is, Grimm? Spit it out.”

  “Ella did not kill Preston,” he said firmly. “He was dead long before he got to Siren Woods. Preston Charming was poisoned.”

  MICHAEL’S ANNOUNCEMENT brought on a flurry of activity. Samira got on the phone to the coroner, Spencer soothed an agitated Adalynn and Delilah, and Monica dragged Michael into a corner to talk.

  “Are you sure about this?” she hissed. “You really think he was poisoned?”

  He nodded. “It makes sense. It explains why he was sick that day, why the medicine didn’t help him, and why he was acting so strange with Ella. Something was wrong, Mo.”

  “Okay, but if it was poison, how are we going to prove it in time? It can take weeks for a tox report to come back.”

  Michael leaned in and lowered his voice. “We don’t need tox reports, Mo. How many poisons do you think are slow-acting and induce drooling? We know all the suspects, all the motives, and soon we’ll figure out the real murder weapon. We’ll start by figuring out how and when whatever it is got into his system. We’ll retrace his steps that day and go through everything he ate and drank.”

  Monica nodded along. “Okay, okay. We’ll start over from the beginning.” She looked over her shoulder. “I hope you’re right, Michael, because self-defense or not, if we don’t prove that Ella wasn’t the killer, she will be known throughout Castle Rock as the girl who killed the self-crowned Prince Charming, and that won’t look good on a college application.”

  MICHAEL AND MONICA drove straight to the office and went to work. “We’re starting from scratch, sis,” Michael announced while sweeping the clutter off the breakroom table. He pulled out the whiteboard and stood back to examine it. The siblings stood shoulder to shoulder. “Re-evaluating everything we know.”

  “This means all the alibis we’ve gotten so far mean nothing. Everyone is a suspect again.” She sighed. “Even Ella.”

  He shook his head. “Actually, I would say everyone is a suspect now except Ella. For someone to slip Preston poison they had to be close enough to him and his food or drink. Ella doesn’t go to the same school as him, they aren’t friends, and by everyone’s admission, Preston didn’t hang around the Ino house often and definitely was not there on the day he was killed.

  “Abby is his girlfriend. Delilah was his girlfriend’s twin. He goes to school with Peyton, Lance, and Auggie. The boys probably ate lunch with him so they had access. Then there is Bryan Charming who lived with the kid.” He shook his head. “No, Ella just had the misfortune of arranging to meet him at the wrong time. She defended herself and runs away; the weak and disoriented Preston succumbs to whatever was in his system and ends up dying before he could get help.”

  “How do we figure out what was used to poison him though?” Monica asked. “Even if I can narrow down the symptoms from the little we know, we’ve been on the wrong track for days. Hunting down the person he met in the woods instead of his poisoner. The killer had plenty of time to get rid of evidence.”

  “We’re going to have to do some good old-fashioned detective work, Mo,” he said assuredly. “The killer has probably been celebrating. Thinking what a lucky break they caught that Preston was thought to be killed by something else and we’ll use that to our advantage. They might have said or done something careless, because they figured they were safe.”

  Monica turned to him, gazing at him in disbelief. “How are you so optimistic right now? We are under an impossible deadline with only half the facts but you’re acting like we’re going to catch the guy any second now.”

  He grinned, straightening to his full height. “Because I wasn’t wrong, Mo. Ella didn’t do it. All night and all morning, I’ve been questioning myself, doubting myself. I felt like the biggest fraud for calling myself a detective when I couldn’t catch a killer that was dangling right under my nose.” He grasped her shoulder. “If I can’t trust my observations or intuitions then I have nothing, but now I know I haven’t lost my mojo. Bryan Charming, Penelope Charming, Lance Hart, Abigail Ino, Delilah Ino, and Peyton Dunn. Those are our suspects. The killer has to be one of them.”

  Monica blew out a breath. “Alright, bro. Let’s get to work.”

  MICHAEL PUSHED HIS desk chair back and stretched, groaning as things inside him popped, cracked, and cried out. It was pushing midnight and they were still working to narrow down the poison and their suspects.

  “Michael!”

  “What?” He jumped.

  “Michael, I think I got it,” Monica exclaimed. “The poison. I know what it is.”

  “Are you serious?” Michael had told her that they could find out the poison without a medical examiner, but he still hadn’t thought it would be that fast.

  “Yes, it was like you said. There aren’t many poisons that cause drooling. I was able to toss out most of the list right there.” Monica popped out of her seat and ran over to him, carrying her laptop. “Listen to this. Only a few toxins are known to induce sialorrhea, or drooling, among them are heavy metal toxins like thallium and grayanotoxins.” She looked up. “We can eliminate thallium, because a person in the final stages of thallium poisoning would have been practically comatose. They certainly wouldn’t have been able to drive or harass innocent girls. That leaves grayanotoxins.”

  “Mo, you’re amazing. I can’t believe you did it.” He clapped. “There’s only one problem. I have no idea what grayanotoxins are.”

  She grinned. “Oh, but you do, dear brother. It’s what we mere mortals like to call mad honey disease.”

  “Mad honey disease,” he repeated, scrunching up his face in thought. “Don’t people fall victim to that when a bee dabbles in the wrong flower and people eat the honey they make from it? Is our killer a villainous beekeeper?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t have to wait for the bee if you have the flower itself.” She turned the laptop around and pointed. “This flower.”

  His eyes bugged out. “Azaleas? You mean that harmless-looking, incredibly common shrub is our murder weapon.”

  She nodded. “Mad honey poisoning is the only fit and from what the research says, this is the best way to get it. Every part of it is poisonous and the dang thing grows all over this town. Anyone smart enough to know what it does could get their hands on it.”

  He blew out a breath. “Okay then... that is where we s
tart. With the suspects smart enough to know what this flower does.”

  “Anyone in mind?”

  He smirked. “How about Lance Hart of Hart Hospitals? I bet he’s been groomed since diapers for the medical field and running hospitals. He might know a thing or two about poisons.”

  “He might, but we’re still not allowed anywhere near him.”

  “No, but you are allowed near his cook. Your friend who works for the Harts. If we happen to drop by for a chat and he happens to walk into the room, and we happen to start up a conversation, then no one can blame us for that.”

  She hummed, smirking right back. “That is a lot of ‘happens.’ You really have gotten your mojo back.”

  “Yes, I have, baby sister. We have the jealous Lance Hart watching his treacherous best friend use and mistreat the girl he cared for. We have the spurned ex-girlfriend, Peyton Dunn, who was abandoned, ignored, and paid off like she was a dirty little secret instead of the mother of Preston’s child and Bryan’s grandchild.” He lifted his brow. “You were adamant she couldn’t bash anyone over the head, but surely you’ll agree even a pregnant girl could slip someone poison.”

  Monica nodded with obvious reluctance. “They do say poison is a woman’s weapon of choice. She’s back in the running, but do you really think she would kill him? Were you getting murderous rage from her?”

  “I get the feeling that she’s angry, extremely angry, but if that anger was toward Preston or Bryan, I don’t know.”

  “Speaking of Bryan,” Monica said. “Do we still think he could have murdered his own son? What would his reason be?”

  “You heard Abby, Peyton, and even Bryan himself. He was riding Preston about acting like a man, being the perfect little prince, and getting into CRU. It seemed like he was putting massive pressure on his son to shape up, but he was doing anything but. The guy cuts him off to get him to stop drinking and what does Preston do the moment his parents leave town? Throw a booze-filled party. He was blatantly disobeying him and Bryan Charming doesn’t seem like the kind of man who takes that in stride.”