Dosed to Death

by P. D. Workman

  He looked at Raven, smiling at her, trying to get something from her other than the scowl she was displaying. She probably was not pleased that the romantic getaway he had planned had actually had the ulterior motive of seeing his biological father and scoping out the landscape. And that he had poisoned her and everyone else. What kind of a psychopath did that?

  “I didn’t poison anyone,” Jack growled, reading Kenzie’s expression.

  “The evidence suggests that you did.”

  “What evidence? You never found anything on me or in my cabin. The only thing I’m ‘guilty’ of is trying to protect Raven from prosecution. I knew no one would understand. I had to take it upon myself.” Jack shook his head. “I would think you would understand that.”

  What would Kenzie have done if she thought that Zachary had done something that put him in danger of being prosecuted? What if he came home with his shirt soaked with blood? How would she handle it? She would like to think that she would do the right thing, but what was the right thing? Turn him in or protect him?

  She had an obligation, working in the medical examiner’s office, to the truth. But did that apply to every circumstance? Or only to official evidence that came to her through her job?

  She hadn’t hesitated when Zachary had come to her with Madison and Noah, when Noah had been shot and Zachary wouldn’t take him to the emergency room in case they put a dirty cop on to him. So she had already been tested in that arena. She knew that if Zachary came to her with something possibly unethical, she would still help him to cover for it. How could she fault Jack for doing the same?

  “I can’t condone the destruction of evidence,” she told Jack anyway, “It would have been better if you had left it to the police to sort out. If Raven did something in an altered state... they would investigate it. Figure out how to deal with it.”

  “And decide to put her away for life. Come on. You know it.”

  Kenzie shrugged. She put her face in her hands and rubbed her eyes and her temples. “I just want... to understand what went on here. If you weren’t the one who poisoned everyone with Jimson weed, then who did?”

  Jack folded his arms across his chest, staring at her sullenly.

  “Two truths and a lie,” Zachary said.

  Kenzie looked at him. “What?”

  “You know, it’s that game where you try to figure out which statement that someone made was a lie.”

  Kenzie nodded. “Sure. I know that.”

  “It isn’t coming together because we have taken as true something that was a lie. What do we believe that isn’t actually true?”

  Kenzie sighed. They couldn’t keep going back over everything again and again. She had already accepted everything Zachary had suggested. That there were no coincidences. That Dewey’s death was somehow related.

  They knew more now, with a better understanding of Jack’s and Raven’s roles in the events, but they still didn’t have the whole picture. They needed the police to investigate it and to sort it out.

  “I don’t know, Zachary. What do we believe that is a lie?”

  “The night that we searched the cabins. What did we accept as true?”

  Kenzie closed her eyes and thought it through. “That no one could have spiked the food with their pills. That the mushrooms were Redd’s. That each of the medications we found belonged to the person whose cabin it was. That we found everything that was hidden.” That one clearly wasn’t true, if Jack had been in possession of Raven’s bloody clothes at that point. Where had he hidden them in his neat-as-a-pin cabin? Maybe outside under the snow? In the barn or one of the other outbuildings? Until he decided he couldn’t hide them any longer and they needed to be destroyed.

  She sighed.

  “That everyone was telling the truth about their own symptoms,” Zachary added. “Hallucinations, fights, amnesia, that all of that was true.”

  “And it wasn’t?” Kenzie asked. Her eyes snapped open.

  Zachary shrugged. “Maybe... maybe not. What does your training tell you?”

  “What did we observe?” Kenzie mused. “The argument and people coming and going, you saw that.”

  Zachary nodded.

  “Redd having hallucinations. He was still hallucinating the next day. I could see him... the way his eyes would move to follow something that wasn’t there. Dilated pupils. Jimson weed is known for causing hallucinations for days, even weeks sometimes.”

  “Raven had dilated pupils too,” Zachary said, giving Raven a nod. “I remember noticing that.”

  Kenzie thought back, nodding. “Yes. She did.”

  “Andy Collins said that he couldn’t remember. That’s another of the symptoms of Jimson weed, so—”

  “But we can only take his word for that. It may be true, but he could just be covering up.”

  “And Stiller too,” Kenzie said. “He said it felt like when he’d been roofied in college.”

  Zachary scratched his jaw. “That seems... like something a man of his standing wouldn’t usually admit to.”

  “No, but it’s one of the things that made me realize they’d all been given something. Not just him, but all of them.”

  “Did he eat or drink more than the others? Does the amnesia mean that he was given more?”

  “I don’t think there’s a correlation. Some people get one symptom, some another.”

  “And if someone knew the symptoms, that would be an easy one to fake. A lot easier than dilated pupils.”

  “Vance Stiller.” Kenzie thought about him. “Why is he even here? It doesn’t seem like the type of place that a high roller like him would vacation. Brittany is known for being ‘one of the people,’ so I can see it in her case. But Stiller? The man came here in a helicopter.”

  Jack looked from Kenzie to Zachary. “He wasn’t here for a vacation.”

  “Well, to see Brittany,” Kenzie clarified. “I guess maybe she picked the venue.”

  Jack shook his head. “No. He wasn’t here for any of that. He told Brittany about the place and she decided to come too, but she followed him, not the other way around.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because he was talking with Dewey about buying the place, came to try to talk him into it, get the lay of the land.”

  “Buying it?” That seemed even more unlikely than his choosing to vacation there. Why would he want to buy a place like that, so far out of his comfort zone? He was a city boy, high finance, a tech guy. Not the kind of person who enjoyed camping in a cabin. And he’d been vocal about it. Why would he buy a place like that if he didn’t even like it?

  Jack nodded. He motioned to Mrs. Hubbard. “Tell them. He was trying to talk Dewey into selling it to him.”

  Mrs. Hubbard shrugged. “Mr. Dewey said he would never sell. Especially not to a man like Mr. Vance.”

  Kenzie nodded slowly. Her eyes found Zachary’s. “There was no way he would sell to a man like Stiller. But maybe his estate or his heir would.”

  They both looked at Jack.

  “Was that the plan?” Kenzie asked him. “Mr. Dewey wouldn’t sell to him, Vance decided to go to the next in line. You.”

  “I never talked to him before I came here. And like I told you, I have no idea if Dewey left me anything. You’d have to check his will.”

  “But you could contest it if he didn’t. Make a claim on his estate as his sole living relative.”

  “Maybe. If I wanted something from him.”

  “A place like this would bring in a lot of coin,” Zachary said, motioning around them. “Medical care can be expensive. Specialized therapy.” He was looking at Raven. “For someone who didn’t grow up with a lot of money, it would be a windfall.”

  “I hadn’t made a decision,” Jack said, keeping his arms folded in front of his chest, giving off a stubborn, belligerent air. “There was no reason to rush into anything.”

  “Did Stiller give you an offer? Suggest a price?”

  “No.”

  Watching his e
yes, Kenzie didn’t believe it for a minute. They had been in negotiations, without Jack even knowing if he would inherit the Lodge, or a portion of it.

  “And Stiller could bring down the price,” Zachary said. “If it turned out the Lodge wasn’t as valuable as you thought initially... if things didn’t go well and it got a bad reputation...”

  “If there was a death or two,” Kenzie filled in, as the pieces clicked into place, finally making sense. “People going crazy there. A rumor that it was bad luck or cursed. A series of tragedies.”

  “He did this?” Jack demanded. “Vance Stiller poisoned us? Caused—” he looked at Raven, “—caused Brooke to get killed? Endangered all of our lives with his poison to get a better price on the deal?”

  “Maybe,” Zachary said cautiously. “It’s speculation right now. But it fits the facts. He could pretend that he had been affected by the Jimson weed. Throw anyone who was suspicious off of the trail. Use anything that happened here as leverage to lower the selling price of the Lodge. And you played right into his hand, burning the farmhouse down.”

  67

  Jack opened the door and bolted. Raven hurried to get her boots back on and follow him. “Jack! Jack, wait!”

  “We’d better stop him,” Zachary warned.

  Kenzie got her boots on and grabbed her coat. She was out the door right after Zachary, leaving Mrs. Hubbard and Tyrrell in the dust. Jack was already pounding on Vance Stiller’s cabin door, making threats, demanding that he show his face. If Stiller had any sense, he would know to keep as quiet as possible.

  He didn’t answer the door. Zachary and Kenzie caught up with Jack. “We need to let the police take care of this,” Kenzie told him. “Another day or two, and they’ll be here...”

  “And by the time they can get here, he’s going to be on a helicopter away from here, and I’m never going to be able to get close to him again. This is it. It all comes down to this.” Jack hammered on the door, calling Vance names, trying to needle him sharply enough for him to lose control and come out of the cabin to fight Jack.

  But Stiller didn’t come out. The cabin was quiet. No movement that Kenzie could detect. She turned toward Brittany’s cabin. Close enough to see what was going on. Maybe Brittany would know whether her boyfriend were there or if he had somehow bolted, escaping without their realizing it. She wouldn’t put it past the guy.

  As she turned and looked at the other cabin, she heard a noise. The soft click of a door latch between Jack’s assaults on the door. The front door hadn’t moved, so it had to be the back. Kenzie stepped to the side, trying to see into the back yard to see whether Brittany were making her escape. She saw Stiller, head down, moving slowly and quietly so as not to attract any attention.

  Jack turned toward Kenzie. Following her gaze, he caught sight of Stiller. “Vance! Hold it right there! You’re not going anywhere!”

  Vance turned around to see Jack. In doing so, he revealed the fact that Brittany was with him. At first, Kenzie thought that he just had his arm around her. A gesture of protectiveness and possession. But Brittany’s face was white, and it only took Kenzie a fraction of a second to realize that she was Stiller’s hostage.

  “Just stay back,” Stiller warned. “There’s no need to get all hot under the collar...”

  “No need?” Jack shouted, drawing closer. “You poison us? Cause someone’s death? Ruin people’s lives? And there’s nothing to get hot about?”

  Stiller took a few steps back, trying to keep distance between himself and Jack. His arm was tight around Brittany’s neck and he held a knife in his hand. Was it the knife that had killed Brooke? Kenzie wasn’t sure if it was the same one, but it looked wickedly sharp and deadly. Brooke’s body had been a bloody mess. Knife wounds were not pretty. A slash across Brittany’s throat would cause her death within minutes. She would bleed out right there in the snow, with no chance of their saving her. Not without a trauma team on hand and a surgeon to sew her up before she bled out.

  “Vance...” Kenzie tried to keep a calm, professional tone. Something that would make him feel validated. Make him feel like someone was listening to him. “I don’t think we need to do this, do you? You don’t want to hurt Brittany.”

  She could see Brittany swallow, trying to pull her throat back from the knife as she did so. “Vance,” she whispered hoarsely. “Honey...”

  But Vance had trained himself to be a shark. To ruthlessly go after what he wanted. No matter what personal pain it brought him. However much grief and regret it might cause him later, it would not stop him from proceeding.

  For a moment, Kenzie could hear nothing but the rushing of blood in her ears. Then she looked around, puzzled by a noise outside her head. It was like the crash of an ocean. Waves of sound swallowing them up. She tried to separate them out, but they all rushed together. People shouting. Snowmobiles. Heavy equipment. A hundred voices all crying out at once. Kenzie looked around, trying to understand what it was and where it was coming from.

  There was a dark flood coming down the hill. Kenzie’s brain couldn’t break the surge of movement into its component parts, dazzled by the sun coming out from behind a cloud and hitting the bright white snow. Overwhelmed by all the images flowing together, as if the flood were made up of a thousand moving parts.

  As the flood engulfed them, Kenzie saw people on snowmobiles, some of them standing or waving shovels. Followed by ranks of tractors, everything from little Bobcats to heavy-duty plows. All coming in from the highway, down the hill, and into the middle of the stand-off.

  Stiller seemed as stunned as any of them. He didn’t have his sunglasses on, and a beam of sunlight suddenly broke through the clouds, causing tears to run down his face. He swiveled his head, trying to see or make sense of all the moving, shifting shapes.

  There were shouts of “He’s got Brittany!” and “The bombshell” and “Go Bambas!”

  A hostage situation should be carefully controlled, managed by a skilled negotiator who was trained in de-escalating situations and ensuring a positive outcome. Everything should be kept quiet and calm, and nothing should be done to startle the hostage-taker.

  The fence between the front yard and the back was no obstacle. Snow machines went airborne over it and, shrieking like pigs being slaughtered, the riders mobbed Stiller and Brittany, parting them with overwhelming force. Kenzie tried to get to Brittany, visions of a severed carotid filling her brain. She shoved the people in the crowd aside, insisting that she be allowed to see Brittany to give her medical care.

  “I’m a doctor! Get out of the way! Let me see!”

  She managed to bully her way through them, over the broken remains of the fence pounded into the snow, until she reached Brittany, stretched out on the ground.

  “Let me see!” Kenzie insisted, jerking and pulling on coats and sweaters that got in front of her. “Brittany! Brittany!”

  Brittany held up her hands, laughing. “It’s okay, Kenzie. I’m okay! I’m fine!”

  Kenzie shoved more people away. She stared at Brittany. Her throat was unmarked, though there were several tears in her coat. Kenzie held out her hand to Brittany and helped her to her feet.

  “Is Vance okay?” Brittany asked, looking around.

  Kenzie searched the crowd for him, but couldn’t see him and wasn’t sure she wanted to. “What just happened here?”

  “The Bambas!” someone shouted close to her ear.

  Kenzie winced. “What?”

  “My fans,” Brittany said, her laugh soft. “It looks like... they found me.”

  “How? How did they find you and how did they get here?”

  “We hadn’t heard anything from the Bombshell in, like, three days!” one of the men nearby blasted Kenzie. “So it was like, everybody was looking for her! And no one knew where she was. We had to follow the trail here, but there was literally no way to get here through the snow. We called out for every dang snow removal vehicle in the state, and we made our own way here!”

  Kenzie b
linked, trying to take it all in. “Your fans plowed the highway,” she said to Brittany.

  “Looks like it. And not a moment too soon!” Brittany laughed.

  “I thought... I thought Stiller was going to kill you!”

  Brittany forced a banal smile, keeping all the anxiety out of her face. Two minutes before, she had been as white as a sheet, begging for her life, and now she was doing her best to show that nothing had fazed her. She looked around her, again looking for some sign of Stiller, then shook her head.

  “I’m not sure... what happened to him. But I guess... everything is okay now.”

  Kenzie heard sirens whoop and looked up the hill to see fire trucks and police cars turning in from the highway. “A little late for them now.”

  “We saw the smoke!” another of the fans shouted. Kenzie didn’t know whether everybody just sounded loud after the isolation of the past few days, or if all Brittany’s fans were just natural yellers. “We were afraid that something might have happened to Brittany!”

  She nodded. “Well... we’re glad that you got here when you did.”

  It was some time before Kenzie managed to make it back to the cabin. Zachary caught her arm as she pushed her way through the crowd of Bambas.

  “Kenz! Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m honestly not sure what just happened, but I’m fine. You?”

  She managed to focus on his face and saw that he had a black eye.

  “Oh. We should put some ice on that. Grab a handful of snow.”

  They holed up in the cabin and watched as the police gradually got the fans moved out of the area. Kenzie saw a white tent go up in the yard and knew that there was only one reason for the scene to be processed that way. Somewhere under the awning was Stiller’s beaten and trampled body. She was glad that it wasn’t her investigation, that she didn’t have to be part of that particular crime scene and to view Stiller’s remains. To be an effective pathologist, she needed emotional distance, and she didn’t have it in this case.