“I didn’t say yes, yet,” I said, interrupting my friend. “I’m just thinking about it.”
“Tag has been punting all weekend, telling customers that your desserts will be back after the weekend. I told you how upset he was having to serve only ice cream.”
“I suppose I could go by tonight when everyone is in bed here and make some pound cakes for tomorrow.” I didn’t say it, but I was thinking they might be my farewell desserts.
“I’ll call Tag and tell him,” she said, hugging me quickly before pulling out her cell phone and heading somewhere quiet.
As soon as she left, my cell phone began to vibrate, and I saw a text message from Sammy. “Mission accomplished. Meet me outside.”
It was cold and dark, and I wished I’d grabbed a fleece jacket. The damp air went right through the turtleneck. Sammy stepped out of the blackness into a pool of light coming from the window of the dining hall. I didn’t mean to, but I jumped, and Sammy steadied my arm.
“You sure you’re really up for investigating a murder?”
“I’m fine. Nerves of steel and all,” I said. “So what did you find out?”
“His name is Michael and he’s a CPA. It was easy to get him talking. The guy was nervous and felt guilty and wanted to spill he guts to somebody who wasn’t a cop.”
“He confessed?” I said.
I couldn’t see Sammy’s face that well in the darkness, but I think he was rolling his eyes. “Now you’re making me feel like a failure,” Sammy said. “He didn’t say he killed her; he just gave me a motive.”
Sammy knew he had my full attention and was enjoying the moment. “It’s kind of nice having something you want,” he teased. I nudged him to get him to continue. “Okay, here it is. He comes here every couple of months to see a client he has in Monterey. Like you thought, he was meeting that woman but said he was going to end it. The guy is married. It seems she called his house and he was feeling guilty about it anyway. He said he was going to tell her it was over.”
“I don’t suppose he told you where he was the night she died.”
“And I thought I’d done so well,” Sammy teased. “You want me to go back?”
I took his arm and hugged it. “You’ve already done more than I could. How exactly did you get him to open up?”
Sammy chuckled and stood a little taller. “Saying you’re a doctor of urology works like magic. Guys figure you’re an expert on the equipment. He seemed to think a guilty conscience was affecting his and maybe coming clean to someone would be a cure.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking it was more information than I really needed. Sammy looked toward the boardwalk that led to the beach and suggested we take a walk.
“You better go now,” I said. “My parents are probably waiting for you.” It was better to push him to go, like ripping a Band-Aid off quickly.
“I can just call them and tell them I’ll be a while. I could take a cab later.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head for emphasis. “I still have activities with the group. But thank you for coming and talking to Michael.” He didn’t make a move to go. “Well . . .”
I wasn’t sure what the etiquette was with someone who used to be your boyfriend, and we stood there awkwardly for a moment before I finally went ahead and hugged him. He immediately took the opportunity to wrap his arms around me.
“Are you so sure it’s over between us?” he said, leaning close to my ear. When I looked up to speak, he kissed me. Here was the problem with that. There had just never been that sizzle between us, at least for me. I had never said anything, but Sammy had figured it out. He’d even offered to take an Internet kissing class. Kissing school? Really? He stepped back and our gazes met in the darkness.
“Well?” he said, hopefully. My nonanswer was an answer, and he seemed deflated. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t about technique or something you could learn from on online class. I had never mentioned it, but I thought a lot of it might have had to do with the fact that my parents were so anxious to push us together.
You would think after that kind of shutdown, Sammy would have been in a rush to leave, but no, he still stood there and reached toward my hair. “Look, a star must have fallen from the sky,” he said as he seemed to pull a metal disk out of my hair. It was blue with twinkling lights.
“You have done that a million times and I still don’t know how you do it,” I said.
He grinned at me. “That’s because I’m a master magician.”
I asked him to do it again, but he shook his head. “Magic is all based on misdirection and surprise. Figuring it out is all about knowing where to look, and I make sure you’re always looking in the wrong place.” He sighed and stepped back. “I know what the problem is. Your parents like me too much, and I have the fatal affliction of being a nice guy. If only I could wave my magic wand and turn into a bad-boy, heartbreaker jerk, you’d be all over me.”
I was afraid he might be right.
23
I NEEDED A COFFEE TO FORTIFY MYSELF FOR THE evening ahead. The encounter with my parents had left me feeling drained, and seeing Sammy had left me confused. And as for my investigating, here it was Saturday night already, and all I had was a bunch of suspects. What were the chances I could wrap this up by the next day? I hadn’t even thought about what I would do if I actually got the goods on whoever had killed Edie.
Who would have figured that Edie was juggling men? I would never have guessed it by looking at the men she was juggling, either. But then I guess all the people having romantic entanglements don’t necessarily look like soap opera stars.
And as for the rest of my suspects . . . I had to wonder what Edie’s real relationship with Scott had been. He had mentioned coming to her house to knit, but maybe there was more. Was Edie really keeping three balls in the air? Then I remembered what Kris had said about Edie outing him if he wouldn’t do it himself. That sounded like a motive to me.
Kevin St. John certainly had a place on the list. Edie had said something to ruffle his feathers that first afternoon. And there was something creepy about him. What was hiding behind that placid moon-shaped face of his? He wanted complete control of Vista Del Mar. Maybe Edie knew something that could topple his world.
It was hard to imagine Bree would have been off the phone or tablet long enough to figure out how to kill Edie. Melissa and Sissy were always together, so unless they’d worked as a team, it seemed unlikely. I supposed I should include Kris, but Edie seemed to be so fond of her. What about Lucinda? No, that was too ridiculous.
And then there was Olivia. She was a big mystery. Who had given her the trip and why? She had a bottle of sleeping pills. Maybe she was totally lying when she claimed to be surprised to find some missing. Did Edie take them on her own or, more likely, take them without knowing? I looked at my watch and realized the evening workshop was starting soon. If she took them without knowing it, they had to have been in the wine. But how did the sleeping pills get there? Maybe Kevin St. John had gotten hold of them. But how could he have dropped all those crushed pills into Edie’s glass just before he handed it to her? I wished I’d asked Sammy about how to get a pill into a wineglass without being seen. It seemed like a magician sort of thing.
My head was spinning as I walked through the Lodge thinking about it all. I was relieved to see that my parents and Sammy weren’t in the gift shop and glad that the coffee cart was still dispensing drinks. I ordered a cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso and took the white foam–capped drink back into the great room. The seating area was full, and there was a soft din of conversation. I stopped next to the registration counter. As I glanced around, my gaze stopped on the wall of photographs.
Some of them were quite old. You could tell by the hairstyles and clothes. I glanced at one of a group of birders. Their utility vests and binoculars around their necks were timeless, but the longis
h stylized hair was all the 1980s. A group of cheerleaders with their ponytails and pageboys from the sixties were caught in mid-cheer on the grassy area across from the Lodge, and the group of very serious-looking writers gathered in the sitting area with their pens poised had the look of the fifties.
Even though I’d seen the picture before, the one with Joan and the retreat group still came as a jolt. Seeing my aunt dressed in that rosy pink sweater she loved so much, looking so happy surrounded by her retreat group, seemed so strange, but at least now I understood why she was holding a burgundy knitted square. Edie had made two and held one in each hand. The other women showed off their squares as well. Kris and someone I didn’t recognize held a partially done blanket made from the squares.
I sensed someone standing next to me and almost jumped when I turned and saw Kevin St. John. How did that man keep showing up without making a sound?
“I hear you’re leaving us,” he said with his usual placid expression. “How lucky for you to have a family who cares so much about your well-being that they were willing to fly halfway across the country just to talk to you. And what a fantastic offer to send you to cooking school in Paris.” He gave me a benevolent smile. “I told them I would be glad to take over the retreat immediately and take care of the liquidation of the house and its contents. You can just walk away now. I will oversee the workshop tonight and tomorrow. I already have someone in mind to empty the house, and then we’ll put it on the market. A house and guesthouse like that in this area should sell fast.”
Before I could tell him to hold off on his plans, he’d put his hand on my shoulder and was trying to steer me toward the door. I looked back just in time to see Olivia Golden coming out of the office area. There was no mistaking her reddish hair as she walked with her head down closely followed by Lieutenant Borgnine. Instinctively I looked at her hands and saw that there were no handcuffs.
“You don’t even have to worry about giving me your aunt’s records. I’ll just help myself after you drop off the keys. So, you can leave now,” Kevin said, seemingly oblivious to the pair leaving his inner sanctum. As if there was any way he didn’t know. Olivia went directly to the door without looking up and was gone before I could react.
Lieutenant Borgnine’s head jerked up, and the stubby-shaped man stepped in front of me. “Leaving? I thought I’d told, I mean asked, everyone in your group to stay put for the weekend.”
I put up my hands in capitulation to Kevin, who seemed to be trying to hide his consternation as his plan was thwarted. Then I looked at Lieutenant Borgnine. “What’s going on with Olivia Golden?”
The policeman answered by saying good night and walking away.
The group was already gathered in the meeting room when I rushed in. “Where’s Olivia?” I said in a breathless voice, seeing that her spot was empty. They’d already started working on their individual projects, and I blew in like a cold wind, shattering their relaxed mode. The workshop leader looked up from helping Sissy with the cables on her light blue scarf and glanced around the table.
“She must be running late,” Kris said, keeping her eye on Sissy’s work. The large meeting room had a different vibe at night. The fire in the fireplace added some warmth, but the curtainless windows looking out into the darkness made it feel exposed.
Lucinda noted my frantic mode and set down the off-white scarf she was working on. “Casey, is something wrong?”
Melissa made a tsk sound. “Is something wrong? Are you kidding? Something has been wrong since Edie got killed.” The mother turned to me and seemed concerned. “You think something happened to Olivia now?” Still holding her needles with the black-and-white patterned scarf hanging off of them, the woman with the unruly hair stirred the group up, and they all started up again on being stuck there and the idea that one by one they were going to be murdered.
The door opened with a woosh, and I caught sight of Olivia’s almond-shaped face and black velour jacket as she came in. I let out a big sigh of relief, and a titter of nervous laughter went through the group as they started talking amongst themselves about it being ridiculous to think they were all going to die.
Olivia didn’t look distracted now. Her gaze was very focused as it moved from face to face around the table. “Okay, who did it?” she demanded.
Their moment of lightness ended as they picked up on her distraught expression, and there was a flurry of “Did what?”
My friend popped out of her seat and began to treat Olivia like a dissatisfied customer at the restaurant. She pulled out a chair for her and offered to get a cup of tea. Lucinda went so far as to pick up a chamomile tea bag and show it to Olivia. Not that it did any good. Olivia was fixated on staring at each person around the table.
“You know what you did.” Olivia’s dark eyes were narrow, and her mouth was set in an angry straight line. As much as I’d been concerned about the faraway look she’d had most of the weekend, I preferred it to this.
When no one spoke up, Olivia turned to me with her hand on her hip. “An anonymous someone called the cops and told them about the sleeping pills missing from my bottle and said they’d seen me holding Edie’s wineglass and that must have been when I put the sleeping pills in it so she’d act all dopey and I could walk her back to her room and suffocate her with a pillow. The caller said I’d insisted on walking her back to her room. That cop in the wrinkled sports jacket hunted me down and took me into some office and said it would be so much easier if I just told him the truth. In other words,” she said, “he wanted me to confess.”
A gasp went through the group. “But I thought she was stabbed with the knitting needles,” Melissa said. She looked around at the others, and Scott nodded in agreement.
“That’s what I thought, too,” Sissy said.
Kris looked at me directly. “Casey, what about you? Do you have more information?”
I hadn’t brought up all the details before. I suppose it was an effort to protect them and to try to get their minds off of what had happened. But after Olivia’s outburst, and now that they were asking me directly, I told them what I had heard about how Edie had died. They listened with rapt attention as I explained that the medical examiner thought the cause of death was suffocation from a pillow being put over her face. I mentioned she’d thrown up and that they’d found a sleeping pill in Edie’s purse. “As for the knitting needles,” I said, “I think they were for effect and to plant somebody else’s fingerprints at the scene.” I didn’t mention the fingerprints were mine.
All eyes turned back on Olivia as she began to protest. “I just walked Edie back to her room. She had trouble with the key so I used it for her and then gave it back to her. She went inside and closed the door. That’s it.” Olivia surveyed all of us to see if we believed her. “And I know how the sleeping pills disappeared from my bottle,” she continued. “You remember the first night at dinner, my purse disappeared?” She looked over the group for some sign of acknowledgment. I tried to think back, all the while wondering if what she was saying was true or if she was trying to get us to go along with some alibi she’d given Lieutenant Borgnine.
I had been so wrapped up with myself that first night, worried about dealing with the group and worried I’d fall apart before the weekend ended. Then it came back to me. I did remember her purse had gone missing at dinner. She’d insisted that she’d put it on the back of her chair and it wasn’t there. Everyone had looked around and it had finally turned up under the table.
Olivia stopped talking and glared at each person again while they all stammered their innocence in the purse caper. Her gaze stopped at me, and I put up my hands.
“I didn’t do it,” I said.
“It could have been someone else completely—someone who wasn’t part of our group,” Melissa said. For once both she and her daughter were in agreement, and they nodded.
“Someone could have walked behind Olivia’s chair
and pulled the purse off the back,” Sissy said. “Then when they were done, they could have shoved it under the table from anywhere.”
“We wouldn’t have noticed because we weren’t expecting it,” I said, thinking of what my old boyfriend Sammy had told me about how he did the trick with the star in my hair.
“That has to be it,” Bree said. “It can’t be one of us.”
“It had to be someone who knew about the sleeping pills,” Scott said.
“And somebody who was planning to murder Edie,” Lucinda added.
Olivia still seemed distraught. “Don’t you see? Somebody is trying to frame me!”
“Did Lieutenant Borgnine say how he thought you put the drugs in Edie’s wine without her noticing?” Melissa asked.
The young woman put her head in her hands in a hopeless gesture. “Mother,” Sissy groaned as Olivia’s eyes flashed anger.
“I’m just asking because I think that’s a pretty major point.” Melissa looked around at the rest of the group, and they nodded, seeing her reasoning. That is, everyone except Olivia, who was staring out the window mumbling to herself. “Why did I ever accept this trip? I didn’t want to come. I wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t forced me.”
Kris asked who she was talking about, but Olivia ignored the question and turned back to the group. “It wasn’t even my idea to walk Edie back to her room. Somebody told me to do it.”
“That would have been me. Though told you is a bit strong. I think it was more of a suggestion when I saw you leaving,” I said, feeling my knees grow a little wobbly. “Someone had nudged me and pointed out that Edie seemed to be having trouble standing up.” I glanced around the group hoping whoever it was would come forward.
The silence was deafening. Kris finally spoke up. “We all noticed that Edie seemed drunk.”
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