Sleuthing Women II

by Lois Winston

  Anastasia was stuck on one phrase of Laura’s ramblings. “You had Epsom salt sent to her?” She automatically translated the popular home remedy into its chemical name, magnesium sulfate. Her old chem teacher, the late Mrs. Granger, would have been proud of her.

  “I left messages for all the girls, but then I just called the concierge desk and they took care of it.”

  Laura made it sound like a normal part of the concierge’s job. All Anastasia had ever asked of the person at the desk was a local map or directions to a theater. She’d have to test the service a little more the next time she stayed in a hotel.

  “Do you remember what time that was?”

  Laura nodded. “I called after dinner. The real rehearsal dinner was supposed to be tonight. Last night, they all came in at different times. It must have been about seven o’clock.” Laura took a deep breath and continued on her own track, her words broken by quiet sobs. “So look what happened. She did what I told her to, and”—another pause—“and look what happened.”

  Anastasia sat back. Was this the real problem? she wondered. Did Laura feel responsible because she’d recommended a soak in the tub and even supplied the ingredients, and that was where her daughter died? Anastasia was no psychologist, she reminded herself, and decided against floating that theory. Instead, she said again, “I’m so sorry.”

  “I hope you can talk to everyone,” Caroline said. “We’ve arranged for them all to stay at the resort overnight, as originally planned.”

  “How did you get them to do that when the police released them?”

  “We didn’t stress the interview part where you interrogate them,” Laura said.

  Anastasia bristled and Caroline rushed to smooth things. “Interview them, she means. Talk to them informally.”

  Laura fidgeted and finally took a drink from her bottle of water. “Yes, yes, that’s what I meant, just a casual conversation.”

  “We suggested they might want to be together, to decompress,” Caroline said. “And I pointed out that it would be so much better for Laura, to know exactly where to contact them in case she needed them for support or anything. They also think they’re going to be asked to tell you if they saw anything unusual in Terry’s behavior these last couple of days. Or anything unusual at the hotel.”

  “Do they think Terry was murdered?” Anastasia asked.

  Laura waved her hand in half-and-half gesture. “It’s hard to say, and anyway I’d rather you come to your own conclusions.”

  “But they’re all willing to cooperate in any way,” Caroline said. “They know you’ve done this before.”

  Anastasia shook her head. “They know I’m not a cop, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” Caroline said. “We can’t thank you enough.”

  A wide smile crossed Caroline’s face, and Anastasia knew she was not going to get out of this, whatever it was. Seeing Laura sit up straight and attempt her own tiny smile made Anastasia think it might be worth it.

  The conversation ground to a halt when Paul came to the door, called Anastasia aside and whispered, “She’s here.”

  SIX

  As soon as she stepped into her knee-high black rubber boots and wrapped herself in blue lab cloth, Anastasia entered another world. Once she closed the door to the prep room, no one would bother her. Even professional morticians like Paul tended to stay away from this part of their facility. She’d read that only half of all mortuary students become licensed embalmers. Once in a while Anastasia had had the assistance of a student or intern, but for the most part, she worked in solitude, except for her client.

  Terry’s earthly remains lay before her. A photo provided by her mother showed a once lovely young woman, with delicate features and rich brown hair. Anastasia thought the photo might have come from Terry’s college yearbook. She had a steady, penetrating gaze and wore the kind of soft drape-necked blouse that many school photographers favored.

  If thoughts of Caroline and Laura’s mission entered her mind, it would be only briefly, and wouldn’t deter her from following a long list of familiar procedures. Keicia was another candidate for distraction. She decided to believe Marty’s prediction, that it would all be smoothed over in time. But another thought slipped through: as long as Jessica is not the killer.

  She took a deep, quieting breath, snapped on her face mask, lowered her shield, and began washing and disinfecting Terry’s body. She massaged her limbs to relieve rigor mortis so Terry’s corpse would have a more natural appearance as she lay in the casket. There were cosmetic details to attend to, also. Anastasia thought of this stage as sculpting. She’d use whatever aids were necessary to secure Terry’s eyelids, mouth, and lower jaw. Glue, sutures, assorted plastic insertions stood at the ready on her tray.

  Terry’s death was nonviolent, if any death can be called that, and thus presented no challenge. Anastasia had had more than a few cases that required unusual restoration. She shuddered as she remembered one of her saddest cases and her biggest challenge—a young boy had been decapitated in a car accident. She’d been forced to be creative in the extreme to prepare him for viewing.

  If Terry had been poisoned, it was an undetectable toxin that had been involved. Anastasia was always amazed at how many lethal poisons were more or less readily available. She thought of ricin, available in the castor bean plant. Sushi was another possibility, with its tricky handling needs. She took a breath. Right now, her concern was preparing Terry for viewing, not cataloging deadly poisons.

  Paul had told her that Laura wanted an open casket for her daughter. The embalming fluid Anastasia prepared, a mixture of formaldehyde, water, and other chemicals, was designed to deliver a lifelike color to Terry’s skin—not deathly pale and not sunburnt pink. Pink lanoline in, blood out she recited, force of habit from her school days.

  Anastasia noted that two more bodies had been delivered to Babcock’s today. They were in the corridor, waiting to be wheeled into her station. She wondered why Paul hadn’t mentioned that there was more to do. His voice over the intercom gave her the answer.

  “Stas, I meant to tell you, don’t worry about the other clients down there. Randy is coming in later to take care of them.”

  “But I’m right here, and—”

  “You have other things to do.” The hollow sound of the intercom was perfect for delivering Paul’s message.

  She finished her work on Terry and called up to Paul. “Terry’s ready for Ryan,” she said, and hung up quickly. Ryan, a high school errand guy, would be sent to move Terry into her casket, without further interaction between Anastasia and Paul. Who knew what else Paul had planned for her?

  As she was de-robing and washing up, Anastasia’s phone rang. The caller ID read FRST BERK TITLE. The title company handling the escrow on her bungalow in the Berkeley Hills. Anastasia’s nervous system twinged a bit. She’d almost forgotten. She had sold her house. Or almost. She still had papers to sign. By the time she processed this decision and absorbed its meaning, the call went to voicemail. Just as well. One crisis at a time. Not that living with Marty constituted a crisis. Did it? No, she didn’t doubt her feelings. It was change that got her every time.

  A few more steps toward the parking lot and her phone rang again. Was there some kind of urgency about signing those papers? But the caller ID this time was ABREY RESORT. One of the wedding party? She hoped it wasn’t Keicia’s niece, although she wasn’t sure why.

  Anastasia clicked ACCEPT and was treated to a cheery voice.

  “This is Nancy at the Abrey, confirming your reservation for this evening. Do you wish a late check-in?” Anastasia wished no check-in, surprised that she’d been booked into the hotel. Nancy continued, without a word from Anastasia. “We’re keeping a hold on the room, in case you want to extend your stay with us,” said the sweet voice, as if she were an old college chum, ready to host Anastasia for the weekend.

  Anastasia knew there was no use questioning Paul about the arrangement, or complaining that he hadn’t even aske
d her first.

  The day had taken its toll and the Paul-Caroline-Laura trio had worn her down. Anastasia drove home to pack her resort outfits.

  ~*~

  “Nuh-uh,” Marty said. “I can’t believe they would expect you to do that, take a room right there in the hotel, knowing someone in that group is a murderer.” Marty was pacing, and not the good kind of pacing, where he seemed to have music going through his head.

  “It’s not for certain that one of the wedding party is guilty. In fact, the police don’t even think Terry was murdered.” With some surprise, Anastasia heard herself defending Paul’s manipulation of her weekend. “I’m just going to ask all the questions I remember from cop shows.”

  Marty stood tall and used his mocking voice. “Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt your bride?”

  “Did your fiancée have any enemies?” Anastasia added.

  They carried on for a few more clichés, until Marty said, “But I am serious, Stas. About your going to that hotel in direct contact with . . . who knows who?”

  “So am I. Serious. I’ll leave at the first hint of trouble.”

  Marty shook his head. “Not good enough. I’m coming with you.”

  “I’ll be fine. And you have that thing at the studio.”

  “They can do that thing without me. It’s just choosing and hanging some photos on the wall for Parents Day. They don’t need me.”

  “Even if there is a killer among these bridal attendants, they’re not gong to strike twice.”

  “This is not lightning, Stas. Clearly, you don’t watch enough crime dramas.” Marty turned on his mock-cop voice again. “Had your friend received any threats?”

  Anastasia called a halt to the game and rummaged around in the clutter—her clutter—in the living room until she found her overnight bag. When Marty dug his out, she didn’t object.

  SEVEN

  The sprawling Abrey Hotel and Resort dominated the Berkeley neighborhood only a few blocks from Marty’s modest three-bedroom home. The stark white structure was set high off the road, against the Oakland-Berkeley hills, its central tower topped by the stars and stripes waving in the breeze.

  Marty had driven while Anastasia checked out the resort website on her tablet. “More than two hundred guest rooms, breathtaking views of San Francisco, state-of-the-art fitness center, twenty-two acres of landscaped gardens, a spa, two pools, a world-class restaurant,” Anastasia read. “Wow.”

  “And one murdered guest,” Marty said, reminding her why they were headed up the long, curving driveway to valet parking. Since they’d entered the property, they’d passed six tennis courts with stadium seating.

  “Alleged,” Anastasia said. “Alleged murdered guest.” But as they traversed the vast lobby, their mood was far from that of a vacationing couple. They walked in silence, passing a small coffee shop, a boutique dress shop, and what might be called a souvenir shop, but with obviously very high-end merchandise. Anastasia doubted she’d find thimbles or key chains with the San Francisco skyline.

  At the registration desk, they were greeted by a woman wearing a nameplate, NANCY, the same person who’d confirmed Anastasia’s booking by phone, but considerably less cheery. She stood in front of a computer screen and keyboarded for as long as it might have taken to write a term paper, Anastasia thought. Or maybe it took that long to add Marty’s name to the roster of guests.

  “We’ve moved the whole . . . uh . . . bridal party to the second floor, and have put you there also,” Nancy said.

  It dawned on Anastasia that the original bridal party floor must have been a crime scene, at least for a few hours while the medical examiner reviewed the untimely death in one of its rooms. A chill ran through her and she was suddenly very glad Marty had insisted on coming with her.

  “Hello?” A voice behind her caught Anastasia’s attention. “You’re Anastasia, right?”

  Marty snapped to it, turning from the desk to follow the sound and studying the young woman who’d approached Anastasia.

  “Yes?” A shaky admission of who she was. Why had this amazingly beautiful resort instilled fear in Anastasia? The death of a young person was nothing new to her. Death was her business, and she’d handled the embalming for a client as young as seven, and one who had reached her one hundredth birthday. Something was different here, something Anastasia couldn’t identify.

  The woman extended her hand. “Jessica Bates. Keicia’s niece. She told me you were coming.”

  Anastasia shook Jessica’s hand and they stood in silence, until Anastasia managed an awkward, “Nice to meet you,” and introduced Marty. Under other circumstances—at a wedding, for example—she knew the two would have had difference responses, filled with pleasantries glad-handed greetings, and shared stories of Keicia, the woman’s aunt and Anastasia’s best friend.

  “A few of us are having a drink before dinner,” Jessica said, pointing to the lounge, visible past the parlor grouping to their right. “Would you like to join us?” Jessica, too, seemed awkward, hesitant.

  Anastasia felt frozen in time and space. Was Jessica’s invitation meant to include an interrogation? It was likely that Keicia had told her niece that Anastasia would be talking to everyone in the wedding party. Were “a few” of them sitting in wait for her unofficial police work?

  “I’m so sorry for the loss of your friend,” Marty said.

  Anastasia breathed a sigh of relief and a silent thank you to Marty for bringing a touch of normalcy to the situation. She took Jessica’s hand again, signaling her own sympathy, and heard a weak “Thank you” from her.

  “I’ll take our bags up to the room. You go on,” Marty told Anastasia, nodding toward the lounge.

  Anastasia obeyed as if she were in dance class and Marty had told her to do a Buffalo pullback. Cross foot in front, step, shuffle, switching pullback.

  She followed Jessica into the lounge, noting that the young woman had her aunt’s flare for dramatic clothing. She wore what could have been described as a onesie, sized for small adults instead of infants—a one-piece, short-sleeved top with a beaded bodice, that ended in shorts. Anastasia counted at least four different shades of red, and a similar number of orange hues. She stopped counting colors and focused, gathering her wits as she zigzagged toward the large semicircular booth Jessica headed for. Four people, three women and one man, sat in a hushed conversation that stopped as Anastasia took a seat at the end.

  “Hi, everyone,” Anastasia said. “I’m a friend of Terry’s mom.”

  There, it was done. Now all Anastasia had to do was find out what had happened, and she’d be free to go back to her real job of caring for Berkeley’s deceased, no matter how they met their end.

  ~*~

  It turned out that Jell-O shots were the preferred drinks of Abrey’s young patrons. Am I that old? Anastasia wondered. The last party she’d gone to had stocked two kinds of wine and a chest of beer. She learned from Cody, Jessica’s fiancé, that a Jell-O shot was simply a mixture of Jell-O and vodka. She declined the drink in favor of ginger ale.

  Anastasia’s seat in the booth faced a wall decorated with an array of photos set up outside, just to the right of the lounge in a gazebo designed for weddings. The photographs pictured happy couples, brides draped in white, multi-tiered wedding cakes, tiny flower girls and ring bearers. Everyone’s dream wedding. Except for Terry’s.

  And except for Anastasia’s own wedding, many years ago—her first big mistake, Keicia called it at the time. Anastasia and Sonny had both been young and impetuous, determined to defy convention. Sonny, who showed up about once every two years, was still defying it by not having a steady job and keeping his old motorcycle running on fumes.

  Anastasia realized her reveries had caused her to miss a couple of introductions. She now knew Jessica and Cody, and maid-of-honor Erica, but missed the names of the other two bridesmaids. She’d have to pay close attention to find out which one was Rachel, and which one Shannon. She did remember from Paul’s list of
characters that Shannon had dated Lucas, the groom-to-be at one time.

  Was it her, or did all the young women look alike? Hair different shades from blond to light brown, curls cascading over sleeveless tops with shoulder cutouts, perfect smiles outlined by shiny lips. Maybe they’d all been stuck with only their wedding makeup kits. Anastasia couldn’t help feeling her age, especially as she did the math and discovered that it wasn’t much of a stretch to picture herself as the mother of any of these women.

  She wondered where Lucas and the other groomsmen were, but Jessica cleared that up before she had a chance to ask.

  “Oh, by way,” Jessica said. “Noah and David took Lucas to play tennis, or at least hit the ball around, to, you know, distract him. No one knows where Garrett is.”

  Anastasia filled in a mental chart. Lucas was the groom. Noah, the best man. David what used to be called an usher, like Jessica’s fiancé sitting to her right. And Garrett had been a question mark on Paul’s initial list.

  “Have you seen Garrett, Shannon?” one of the women asked. “He’s supposed to be your partner down the aisle.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  Anastasia could now check off: Shannon was in sparkly pink; Rachel must be the off-white who’d asked the question. A little late, she remembered that Rachel, who worked for Terry as a tech writer, was the oldest in the group. She held back a smile as she recalled Paul’s list, with Rachel designated as “older” and, in parentheses, thirty-five or forty. What would he call Anastasia at just past the big five-0? In any case, Rachel did look a smidge older than the others.

  “I’m sure you want to know how we found her and everything,” Jessica said to Anastasia, yet again taking charge, leaving Anastasia’s interrogation skills in the dust. Anastasia had half a mind to call the Paul-Caroline-Laura triumvirate and tell them that Jessica was the best one to do their sleuthing. She wondered if Keicia knew of this special talent her niece had. She also wondered if Keicia had forgiven her yet for her insensitive storytelling earlier today.