Dosed to Death

by P. D. Workman

  “What was it, then?”

  “Do you remember seeing her last night? If you think that she was outside and got hypothermia, then you must remember something.”

  He glanced over at Brittany. “Just something someone said.”

  “It wasn’t hypothermia. It wasn’t because she was outside.”

  “What happened then? A fall? I don’t have a clue what everyone was doing outside. We weren’t. We were inside where it was nice and warm and safe.”

  But it hadn’t been particularly safe in the Collins cabin. Things had actually been rather dangerous.

  “How do you know that you were inside when everyone else was outside?” Kenzie asked. He was clearly remembering some details. Or at least, some impressions.

  “Why do you keep asking questions instead of answering them?” he shot back. He stared at her fiercely, challenging her to face him and discuss what exactly was happening.

  Kenzie relented. “Brooke Collins was stabbed to death. She was murdered.”

  Vance’s mouth fell open. Kenzie looked from him to Brittany, waiting for the woman’s reaction. Brittany looked impassive. Maybe she had already guessed that part. Or maybe she didn’t care.

  “Murdered,” Vance repeated, stunned. “Who killed her? Her husband?”

  “We don’t know yet.” Kenzie looked at Zachary, gauging how much they should tell Vance. The fact that he had immediately assumed that it was Andy Collins who had killed his wife was telling. Zachary gave Kenzie a slight frown, indicating she shouldn’t tell him too much. “No one saw what happened, and we are trying to find out where everyone was last night... even if you only saw her for a few minutes. It could be helpful.”

  “What would help is if I could remember anything at all about yesterday,” Vance said, pressing the knuckles of his left hand into his forehead. “But the whole thing is a blank.”

  Kenzie frowned. It was the same line as Andy Collins had given, though he only said he couldn’t remember anything since supper. Had they both had too much to drink? Or had one particular choice of drink produced an amnesiac effect? She had assumed it was something that Andy and Brooke had taken together, to enhance their evening, but where was Vance in that equation? Unless they had bought something from him or sold it to him. She couldn’t see them all just sharing illicit drugs out of friendship and goodwill. They didn’t seem to have anything in common and Vance in particular was not the friendly type. He got Kenzie’s hackles up every time they spoke.

  “Did you take anything that might have contributed to this loss of memory? Have you ever experienced anything like this before?”

  “I’m not the type to take recreational drugs,” he said stiffly, which was exactly what Kenzie would have expected him to say, whether it were true or not. “I may occasionally have a drink or two for social occasions, but I do not drink to excess. I feel like... like I’m coming down with something. Or maybe I got food poisoning. I got roofied once in college; some stupid fraternity prank, and that felt very similar.” He shook his head. “It’s not a natural feeling.”

  Roofied. Food poisoning. There was one commonality among the other guests, and that was that they had all eaten the evening meal together. Kenzie turned this over in her mind.

  What could have caused the symptoms that they had been encountering? Unusual anger, high, amnesia. There were many possibilities. Many substances, taken to excess, could cause one or all of those symptoms.

  “Roofied,” she repeated, looking at Zachary and Brittany. “That makes some sense. And if that’s the case...” she looked back at Vance. “I wonder if we could get a sample... for later testing, when the police get here. It may be a few days, and we would want to preserve any evidence until then. If you took something or were given something, it will be gone from your system in a few hours or days.”

  “A sample? Like what?” He frowned. “You may be a doctor, but I still haven’t seen any proof of your qualifications. I’m not letting any random person stab me with a needle.”

  “No... I was thinking more along the lines of... a urine sample.”

  “You want my pee.”

  Kenzie’s face heated. She should have been professional enough for it not to embarrass her, but the circumstances were bizarre. She wasn’t in a hospital or clinic setting. She was in some guy’s cabin, trapped by the snow, asking for his pee. And what was she going to do with it? She needed a container. And then to keep it somewhere secure and cold. Somewhere cold wasn’t a problem, but somewhere secure might be.

  “If you’ve been roofied, you would want to know about it, wouldn’t you? You would want to catch the person who did it.”

  He considered this, but didn’t immediately say yes or no. Kenzie could understand that it would be a difficult thing for a man to admit to. Men were not the ones who were supposed to be targeted by such drugs. If a man were drugged, then of course that didn’t make him weak or helpless, but it might make him feel that way. Society didn’t give him a script to follow.

  Stiller looked at Brittany, and at first Kenzie thought that he was seeking her opinion about whether he should try to find the culprit or not. But the look lasted, and Kenzie finally twigged onto the fact that she had been his date. She had been the one who was close to his drinks and who had gone back to his cabin with her. If someone had had clear access to his food and drink, it had been her. Kenzie looked at Brittany, weighing the possibility.

  Brittany flushed red. She shook her head. “You think I would do a thing like that? Why? I can get whatever I want. From you or any other man. I have no reason to drug anyone.” She wrinkled her nose. “Certainly not you.”

  Stiller chuckled rather than being offended by her declaration. He motioned her closer to him.

  “You don’t,” he agreed. “Certainly not me.”

  Brittany held back at first, trying to maintain the same level of disdain, but she failed. She walked up to Stiller and he put one arm around her to snuggle her up close against his side, and then he nuzzled her cheek and kissed her.

  “No need at all.”

  Kenzie looked away, waiting for the two of them to come back down to earth. Zachary caught her eye and raised an eyebrow at her. She just shrugged and shook her head. It certainly didn’t look like there were any problems between Stiller and Brittany.

  But that still left the question open. If someone had drugged Stiller, then who? And why? And had they drugged everyone at the dinner?

  32

  Eventually, Stiller and Brittany returned to the conversation. Brittany had a mischievous sparkle in her eye that hadn’t been there before. Stiller was looking a little wider awake, but he still had a certain lethargy in his movements, and he didn’t answer questions as quickly as Kenzie expected him to. As if he had to think them through and compose his answer carefully, which she hadn’t seen him do before.

  “So where does that leave us?” Stiller asked. “You can’t think that I had anything to do with Mrs. Collins’s death. Why would I? I didn’t have any motive. And I have my own issues. Obviously, I can’t swear that I never saw her. I could have had an hour-long in-depth conversation with her, but I haven’t a clue. I can’t tell you anything about last night or yesterday. Maybe she told me she was afraid her husband was out to kill her for her life insurance policy. But we’ll never know now. If someone roofied me, if that’s what happened, then they wiped that all out.”

  “Where we are now is, I want you to be tested when the police get here. And that means giving a sample now, before it all metabolizes.”

  “When do I have to decide?”

  “Some drugs are out of your system pretty quickly. I would do it right away, to ensure the best results.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think that’s something I want to do. I have a reputation to maintain. People like me don’t go around getting roofied. It just doesn’t happen.”

  “And what if a video showed up of you doing something that you don’t remember? Something worse than being targeted by
another person. What if you did something or said something or hurt someone when you were under the influence? Under the influence of a drug that you didn’t take voluntarily?”

  Again, he looked to Brittany before answering.

  “I think... that I’m better off keeping quiet. No one has any internet access here. If something comes to light... then I can work the story. But that will probably never happen. This was just... a weird night. Nothing criminal happened.”

  “Something criminal did happen,” Zachary pointed out. “A woman was killed. And you were possibly drugged. Maybe others were too. Maybe to cover for the perpetrator of the murder. Maybe for some other reason. If you’re being set up...”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with any of that.”

  “You don’t remember.”

  “I don’t remember,” Stiller agreed, an edge to his voice. “And no one is going to convince me otherwise. So, no. You’re not getting any piss or any other bodily fluids from me. And you’re not getting any more cooperation. I’m done. I’m going back to bed.”

  “Sorry to have bothered you,” Kenzie said. She stepped forward, off of the welcome mat. Onto the wood floor and across to the kitchen where Stiller and Brittany stood, separate from each other, just as they always were. A different class from everyone else. Lone wolves. Kenzie offered her hand to Stiller in a show of good sportsmanship and peace. He looked at her for a moment, then finally reached out his hand and shook hers. A firm shake, just a little bit harder than it needed to be. Showing her the edge. That he had the upper hand. Kenzie smiled and released, withdrawing from him. “We’ll see you around.”

  She stumbled over his boots at the door and set them upright again. They didn’t look like a match for either of the treads she had seen, but they might not be his only pair of boots.

  She and Zachary left the cabin, back out into the biting cold. They had seen almost everyone, and Kenzie hoped that meant that she could go back home. There was still Jack. They had talked to him earlier, but had not had a personal interview with him. Did they need to? And did they need to conduct interviews with the staff? Or could they leave all of that for the police to review? They had talked to the most likely suspect. They had done their best to preserve all of the evidence. They had made sure that Vance was okay and hadn’t been another victim of violence. If he had been drugged, he wasn’t going to allow them to test him. By the time the police got there, then whatever was in his system, if anything, would be gone.

  Surely that meant that now she could go home and just relax for a bit. Warm her bones and have a little nap to regenerate.

  “No marks on his hand?” Zachary asked as they walked back toward the cabin, the wind at their backs now.

  “No marks on his hand,” Kenzie agreed. “I’m pretty sure that he’s right-handed, and there were not any blade marks or defensive wounds on his hand or wrist.”

  “So he isn’t the culprit.”

  Kenzie nodded. She thought about it as they walked back to their cabin. “Or else whoever stabbed her was wearing gloves.”

  Zachary considered this. “Not just any gloves. Something pretty tough. Leather. Work gloves. Not just wool mittens.”

  “Yeah. And maybe the gloves have knife marks on them.”

  They both glanced around as if they might find a pair of leather gloves lying right there at their feet, as if it were a TV police drama and the clues would show up at exactly the right time.

  “Might have burned them,” Zachary said. “Or tossed them out in the woods. Or in the pond.”

  “The pond is frozen.”

  “Not the pond, then. Maybe buried under the bonfire wood. Or sliced into little bits and flushed.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe they didn’t realize the gloves are cut. If they didn’t get cut all the way through, maybe they don’t even know.”

  “Maybe. Maybe we’ll still be able to find them.”

  “Do you think Stiller was drugged?”

  They reached the door to their own cabin. Zachary slowly twisted the knob to open the door. “Yes. I think he was.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  The kids were setting up games on the floor in front of the fireplace where it was warmest. They seemed resigned to loss of their electronic devices and the fact they would have to entertain themselves. People said that kids didn’t know how to entertain themselves anymore, but Kenzie saw that they were quickly adapting. They had been at a loss the day before when plunged into the dark ages, but they seemed engaged now, discussing new games, rules, and possibilities. If it warmed up a little, they could kick the kids outside to play in the snow awhile. Make snowballs and snow angels and forts to defend themselves.

  It was amazing how quickly she could forget about the real horrors that had happened not that far from their own back door. Would it even be safe for the kids to go outside to play? Would it be safe for the adults? How long would they have to stay inside before the police would arrive and take over the investigation?

  “You guys have been a while,” Tyrrell remarked. “I thought you would be back before now. I take it you found the missing lover?” He munched on a sandwich. Peanut butter, by the smell of it.

  “Actually, we did find her,” Kenzie admitted. “But...” A glance at the kids to make sure they were not listening too closely. “Things were not good.”

  Tyrrell’s eyebrows went up. He looked at Zachary, seeking out the older brother whom he could communicate with more naturally than Kenzie, seeing whether he had interpreted her words and manner correctly or whether he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. “What?”

  Kenzie began to divest herself of her outdoor gear. She wasn’t going to go out there again for a very long time. Maybe not until spring. She was cold to her bones.

  “Yeah,” Zachary agreed, nodding, confirming that Tyrrell had understood correctly. “About as badly as possible.”

  “Oh, no. That’s terrible. What are we going to do? Is someone going to get the police?”

  Mason looked up from his game, alert to the mention of police.

  “We can’t get anybody right now,” Zachary said. “The roads are not passable. We’ll have to wait until the highway is plowed and Mr. Burknall clears the roads here. And that might be a few days. It’s not snowing right now, but this storm is supposed to last at least another day, maybe more.”

  “Why do we need to call the police, Daddy?” Mason piped up. “They can come even if they can’t drive on the roads. They could come in a helicopter.”

  Stiller had come in a helicopter. But the weather conditions had been far more favorable. “When the clouds clear and the winds die down,” she agreed. “They can’t get a helicopter here in this kind of weather. But you don’t need to be worried. Everything is just fine.”

  Mason looked at Kenzie and immediately discounted her opinion. She could read it in his face. Which meant that there was something to be worried about and they needed the police to come.

  “What are you talking about?” Alisha took longer to realize that there was another conversation going on around her. One that she should pay attention to because it impacted her daddy and maybe others too. “What’s wrong?”

  “We have to call the police,” Mason told her. “Where’s your phone, Daddy? Why don’t you call?”

  “You know that we don’t have any electricity right now,” Tyrrell said. “I can’t charge my phone. And I can’t make a call without a signal. We’ll have to wait until the storm is past.”

  “You have to try,” Mason insisted. “Maybe if you hold it up high.” He held his hands up in the air, looking up at them. “Sometimes if you go up high, you can make it work.”

  “Yes. Sometimes. But today I need to stay in the cabin and just wait. When the storm passes, then we should be able to make phone calls again.”

  “There’s no storm right now.”

  “It’s not blizzarding like it was. But there is still lots of cloud cover and trying right now would just run down my battery.” />
  “Use the internet then,” Mason directed. “Or send them a text.”

  “I know all the things to do. But I can’t do them without a cell signal or a charged battery.”

  “A text doesn’t take any battery. And Mommy says there is no charge for them because they are so small.” Mason looked at Tyrrell with all the superior knowledge of an eight-year-old born into the technology age. Silly adults didn’t always know how things should be done. But kids did.

  Tyrrell looked pained. He pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket. “You can use it for five minutes,” he said. “You show me how I can get ahold of the police.”

  Mason took it from him. Kenzie watched him hold down the power button to boot it up. She wouldn’t have given in. She would have told him that it simply wasn’t possible. He was wrong and simply didn’t understand the situation. But Tyrrell didn’t want the argument. He didn’t want to be harassed about it. So he had given in.

  Mason tinkered with the phone for a few minutes. He tapped the screen angrily.

  “Daddy, there are no bars, and the text says, ‘not sent.’”

  “Yes. I know. That’s because there is no signal.”

  “But there has to be a signal.” Mason held the phone up over his head. He went into the kitchen and stood on a chair and held it over his head. He stepped onto the table and held it as high as he could reach. Zachary went over to the table and put his arms out. Mason looked at him for a moment and then allowed Zachary to pick him up and put him on his shoulders. Zachary wasn’t tall, but Mason could almost touch the ceiling with the phone as he strained to get it higher. “We need to go outside. I could climb a tree.”

  “You can’t climb a tree in weather like this,” Tyrrell told him. “It’s cold and icy. Very dangerous.”

  “You climb it then.”

  “No. Not me either. I’ll fall on my a— on my backside. Maybe I’ll break it. You want me to break my backside?”

  Mason giggled. He finally gave up on being able to reach anyone by phone. He reached toward his father with the phone. Zachary walked over so that Mason could hand it to him. Mason kicked his feet as if Zachary were a horse that needed a good kick to get going. He bent down to speak in Zachary’s ear.