“What do you think—”
“He was murdered,” she said, offering me a smile as if letting me in on the secret she knew. “Plain as day, the man had no real friends, so whoever did it, I hardly doubt anyone will throw them to the wolves.”
“Did Paul tell you—”
“In not so many words,” she interrupted me again. “We’re on lockdown, I want a cigarette, I also want another drink, but they’ve called all the servers away, and Patrick has told me to drink the water.”
As someone I assumed was very drunk, her words were spoken without the nearest utter of a slur. “Do you think you know who did it?” I asked her, assuming some part of her brain, with which inhibitions were lowered, she’d give me a name.
“No,” she said. “But to take a guess, I’d say Mr Mortimer would be top of that list.”
“Spencer Mortimer?”
She nodded.
“Diane,” Patrick said, approaching us. “Please don’t fuel this fire.”
“Eve was asking if I had any thoughts about this whole thing,” she said. “And it just so happens, I do have thoughts, and I have names of people I think could quite well be capable of murder.”
“Don’t say something you can’t take back,” Patrick reminded her.
I took Diane’s hand, pulling her focus to me. “I know, you already told me about how Finley had his enemies,” I said. “But I think you should listen to your husband, let me look into it, you both have a business to run, accusing people like that could ruin those relationships. If I do it, I’m not ruining my own livelihood.” Although, if it meant I was fired, I suppose I could accept early retirement or find somewhere else, given the recent exposure of those national newspapers.
Patrick smiled and nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “And if you do find anything, it will more than be perfectly timed for your first article at the paper.”
It was an upside, I suppose.
Diane turned to her husband and took his hands in hers. “Did you tell them not to set the food out until after all this had blown over?”
“I did,” he said. “Although I have a feeling, once this is over, we’ll be heading to bed.”
“You didn’t say there would be a buffet as well?”
She shrugged, turning back to me. “It’s not as common as that,” she said, her upper lip turning. “Some sushi platters, European cheeses, and a selection of hand-crafted, well-paired jams, I mean, this was supposed to be the sprinkling of success on a great night.”
Patrick pulled out an empty chair, pushing it close to his wife as he sat down. “It will be,” he said. “And if the guests don’t get to taste what you had planned for them, they can be used again in the morning for brunch.”
She nodded to him.
I noticed Ruth retake her seat at the table. She puffed out her cheeks and glanced in my direction.
“I’ll leave you both,” I said, wondering whether or not anything they had planned for tomorrow would go ahead, given the events currently underway. If it wasn’t solved soon, we could all be in for a hellish night and in my head, that meant sleeping bags on the hard floor.
Ruth shook her head as I approached.
“What did he say?” I asked her.
She’d written notes on a napkin. “I told him everything we knew.”
“And?” I sat beside her, lifting the tablecloth slightly to double check Charlie was still ignoring me; his tail faced in my direction.
“Let’s get the obvious out of the way,” she started. “It’s not food poisoning, otherwise, there’d be more people.”
“What did he say?”
“That’s just it,” she sighed. “The descriptions were vague, there are too many poisons. He gave me his list of top five, not based on my descriptions, but on common usage for murder. Historically.” She placed the napkin in my view.
“Arsenic, cyanide, atropine, stry—ch—nine.” and my eyes squinted to read.
“Strychnine,” she corrected me. “Used in rat poisons, and the likes.”
“Thallium,” I read the last point. “I’ve heard three of the five.”
“He confirmed it sounds like poison,” she said. “Targeted attack. Someone wanted him dead.”
“Diane didn’t say much, I didn’t even ask about anyone in the pharmaceutical business, but she did mention Spencer.”
“If it was a recent business, then there’s no wonder why his name is attached to Finley’s like this.”
Ruth recalled Spencer with more familiarity than I did. I’d barely recognised him earlier when he’d approached us, Ruth knew almost immediately.
“What business did they have together?” I quizzed myself. “That’s what nobody has been talking about.”
Ruth shrugged. “Investors invest.”
Charlie yapped from beneath the table.
“Come on,” I said, lifting the tablecloth once again.
He zoomed out, as if attached at the hind legs with a rocket.
“Charlie!” I called after him, pushing out from the chair.
I kicked my shoes off and started to chase in his direction, weaving around people as I tried not to lose track of him. He was heading straight to the back of the room.
“We found something,” a loud voice called from ahead.
Pausing from the chase. I peered out to see a paramedic had a folded white paper note to a police officer.
Nearby guests surrounded them, they weren’t paying attention to the body now, but to developments in the stories they were writing.
“A letter,” their voices mumbled, but their fingers tapped harder.
“What does it say?” a voice among them questioned.
Paul was fast in his stretch to the officer with the note, handled by plastic gloved hands.
EIGHT
It slipped. And everyone knew. The note hadn’t been guarded while Paul unfolded it, not reading it aloud. Prying eyes covered every inch of it.
You’re going to be sorry.
People echoed the note in their speech, over and over.
I turned to see Ruth steps behind me.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“There’s a note,” I said.
I didn’t need to tell her anything else, she heard it in their voices ahead, repeating it aloud. Paul held no power over keeping this a secret from any of them, and I was now the least of his worries, he was surrounded by freelance writers who worked for the magazine, and they had no qualms or contracts with selling out for a story.
Once Ruth heard what the note said, her face hunched into a giant squint. Now there was no doubt about it, and everyone was going to be trying to cover for themselves and crafting alibis. We were with the worst bunch, given how many writers among us took creative freedoms, it wasn’t beyond the scope to think alibis were handcrafted too.
“Someone close to him,” I said. “Someone close enough to slip him the note.”
“And perhaps that’s why he was drinking,” Ruth agreed with a nod, quickly turned to concerned raised brows. “Did you find Charlie?”
“He can’t be far.” But he was far enough to be out of sight, and when he was out of sight, he could’ve been anywhere.
“We should look for him,” she said.
I took Ruth’s arm by the wrist and exhaled deeply. “He’ll find us,” I said. “There are too many places he could be, and I don’t want to have to traipse through everyone. He’s the only dog here, and they’re on lockdown.”
“Or he’s sniffing out another body.”
My eyes widened at the thought. “Please don’t.”
“If he’s not back in thirty minutes, I think we should look for him.”
Agreed.
People flooded the back of the ballroom once again, this time in light of the recent discovery, and the questions they now had for the attending officers. They were fishing for statements, official, or not—someone should’ve warned them they were in a sea of reporters, and the bloodletting of a new story w
as precious.
“Must’ve been someone close to him,” Ruth reiterated as we took seats at our table once again.
I pulled my notes to the surface. “Like family?”
“Don’t think he had family.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“So, we’re looking at business partners then.”
Our eyes both glazed over at the names we’d already placed on the list. It could’ve been anyone. From Diane, huffing in her husband’s general direction, more likely, she’d heard the news and wasn’t pleased with the outcome either. To basically, anyone else.
The slow descent of people made their way back to their tables. Looking out, this was likely an order handed down by Paul and the other officers. It would help keep everyone in check as he approached Diane.
“Must be some woman,” a man snickered from the table behind.
“Did you get a look at him?” another asked.
I watched the two men from the corner of my eye, both of them carrying large gauntlet glasses of beer in hand, and both larger in appearance with red stuffy noses; signs of heavy drinkers. Perhaps they knew Finley more than the rest of us. The heavy drinking was the hunch.
Standing as the men sat, chuckling to themselves about their comments.
“Excuse me,” I said, interrupting as I stood between them.
“Yes?” the man to my left said with a half-smile, as if overcome with gas.
I turned my head to see Ruth glaring, possibly telling me it was a bad idea to engage with people on the verge of incapacitating themselves.
“How well did you know Finley?” I asked them both.
“Well, dear, you see, Finley, he’s a bit of an odd one,” the man to the left said.
I wracked my brain for a moment, trying to remember the seating chart. Behind me, on table four. These were investors, or advertisers, or reps from the companies. “Did you work with him?”
“He hired us,” the other man said.
“Michaels Ad Agency.”
“We’re brothers.”
I saw it. The resemblance. “Oh. You didn’t know him personally?”
They laughed again, raising their glasses to each other.
“James and Jim,” one of them introduced.
“We knew him,” Jim, I believed spoke. “We worked with him for years. He wasn’t easy to work for either.”
James scoffed. “Understatement.”
“What do you think happened to him?” I asked, puffing out as if completely overwhelmed by the entire situation.
“He was murdered, obviously,” Jim said.
“Poisoned,” James added with a nod and a second raised glass with his brother.
It seemed poison was on everyone’s mind.
“You think anyone will think you two did it?” I asked in a hesitant grumble. “I mean, you worked for him, clearly a little hostile. Maybe you just wanted to give him a bout of tummy ache, you know, didn’t mean for it to get too far.”
They glanced to me for a moment, their gaze growing hotter as they stared.
“Well,” Jim said. He tapped the base of his beer glass on the table and laughed. “Anyone who owns up to it will be a hero in my eyes.”
His brother cheered his glass. “The absolute truth.”
They were too inebriated to have taken part in any of it.
He wasn’t married or had children, it had to have been someone with a professional grudge, someone who wanted to see him gone for their business gain.
“Spencer?” Ruth said from the table.
I turned to see Spencer, dressed in a white shirt, untucked completely from the waistband of his trousers, wobble in a walk up the steps to the stage.
An echo from the microphone sounded throughout the room, screeching through everyone’s ears. He tapped the microphone with the back of his ringed finger. The metal on metal gave way for a huge clash.
I approached Ruth, placing my hands on the back of her chair. “What’s he doing?”
Pushing the metal to his mouth, directly on his lips. “I—I—I—”
“Is he okay?” she asked, looking to me from her seat.
“I have something—something I want—want to say.” Wobbling on unsteady footing, a throwing from side to side.
“Come on, Spencer,” Patrick spoke from his spot beside Diane.
All eyes shifted, and a quiet surrounded them, almost as if the stage lighting had changed and shifted, making way to spotlight Spencer.
“Get down,” Patrick continued.
“I need to—to say—” the microphone dropped, slipped from his hand.
Thud.
His body followed the microphone to the floor of the stage.
Had it really happened? My eyes widened to question it.
Was his fate met the same way Finley’s had been?
The members of the jazz band were first to him as they sat by their unused instruments.
“He’s still breathing!” a voice called out from a member of the band, he knelt by Spencer with a finger on the neck.
Turning my head, I noticed the curiosity drive from the back of the room all the way to the front. All the way in Diane’s direction.
She stood and smiled, as if they were coming for her. Reaching onto the stage, she grabbed the microphone Spencer had been using only moments ago.
“Please, everyone, don’t run.”
A paramedic raced through everyone to the stage, followed by a police officer as their escort.
Spencer wasn’t dead, but had someone tried to kill him?
Ruth tapped my hand. “You look worried,” she said. “I don’t think he was poisoned as well.” She huffed out her cheeks and rolled her tongue out of her mouth. “Looks like he fainted, probably too much to drink.”
“You’re right,” I mumbled back, pulling my chair to take a seat.
“Speaking of,” she continued. “Drink some water. You’re looking a little dazed.”
“I barely remember Spencer or Finley, but both of them seemed to have had a connection to Harry. And now, I’m just—I’m just thinking.”
“We’ve already been through this,” she said. “And we’re not going down Harry’s rabbit hole again.” She snapped her fingers. “Doubt there’s any small business around here who hasn’t had a little help from Harry or any of the businesses he had business with.”
She was right, and if I was going to obsess over one business decision, there’d be no end to it. No end to the number of people I’d have to know about; new faces, new names. It would only end in the realisation we were both too busy to have children, him with his many projects, and me, chasing my dreams of pursuing a career in journalism.
NINE
A tap to my shoulder pulled me from the thought of the relationship Harry and I had. It wasn’t perfect, but in my mind, and in my thoughts, there were perfections to it, even if to many people we didn’t have all the different aspects of what made their marriages perfect.
It was Paul, the brother of the man I’d married.
“Paul,” I said, smiling to myself, although unsure if he would’ve thought the smile was for him. It wasn’t, but I was living in my memories for a small moment while the commotion around whisked me off.
“Paul,” Ruth then added, her straight lips and equally strained stare on him were warranted; we didn’t need him to come and talk to us, we didn’t need him to come and interrogate once again.
He looked around to see all the people gawking at Spencer on the stage. “What did you see?” he asked.
“Spencer,” we both replied.
“Was he acting strange at all?”
“Drunk?” I suggested. “He wobbled up on the stage, and then started to speak.”
“Before, passing out.”
Paul nodded. “Anything else you know?”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “What’s gotten you asking for help?”
I’d forgotten, Ruth hadn’t been part of the conversation where Paul hadn’t deterred me fro
m doing my own sleuthing. “Paul told me I could meddle,” I offered her with a chuckle.
“Not in those words,” he said back. “But, between us—” his lips parted into a larger smile. “I’m getting a promotion, and I think this will be my last case. I hope, and the sooner it’s done, the faster I can move onto the county constabulary.”
“The county?” Ruth’s eyes widened.
Well, a series of murder cases later, and he’s suddenly hailed an expert. “Seems everyone is getting new jobs lately.” I looked from him to Ruth.
“Not me,” she chuckled back.
“So, do you know anything?” he asked. “I know you’ve been speaking with people.”
That much was true. “Everyone thinks it was poison.”
Ruth raised a hand. “Which the paramedics could tell you, but safer to run tests before actually putting it your notes,” she said. “Unless.”
“Unless what?” he asked.
“Well, unless you find the poison which killed him,” she replied. “So best bet would be to find someone with any background or history in medicine or you know, like that.” She sucked back air through her teeth and planted a hand on her chest. “Now I sound like a suspect.”
Paul offered a half-hearted smile. “Well, did you do it?”
“I’d never met the man before tonight,” Ruth said. “But perhaps there’s someone else among us with a varied history.”
“That would take all evening to find out,” he said.
“Then get started,” I replied with a grin, feeling out of place with all the talk. I wasn’t an expert in poison or medicine, or an expert in anything, just a woman with a varied history who enjoyed solving weekend puzzles and newspaper word teasers.
“I’ve spoken with Diane and Patrick,” he said. “They’re getting me their seating plan so I can reference it against anyone who isn’t here.”
I nodded. “On that note,” I said. “Have you seen Charlie? He ran off when everyone started running towards the back of the ballroom. I’m not too worried, the place is on lockdown, but I don’t want him getting too far.”
He shook his head. “No, but you should probably find him,” he said. “He usually finds trouble, wherever he is.”
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