by Tess Rothery
Sheriff Rousseau scratched his chin. "And you women will be talking about this, I'm sure,” he huffed. “I want to protect you. If not for your own sake then for Ernie's. A good man, that Ernie. He doesn’t need any more grief.”
Taylor swallowed a terrible lump in her throat. She had not seen her grandpa for months, now, and that was the most devastating part of this virus to her.
She’d facetimed with Grandma and Grandpa Quinny several times. They’d tried to get Grandpa Ernie on the screen every time, but he just wouldn’t.
“What can I do?" Taylor asked. “Should I just go home? If I was at my house, it would be easier to stay out of things.”
He shook his head firmly. “Definitely don't leave. Your place is only a mile or two away, but don’t do anything that looks suspicious. Do you promise?”
Taylor nodded. She fully intended to investigate no matter how suspicious that looked, but the sheriff wouldn’t take no for an answer. “There’s another thing I should mention,” Taylor said. “I've asked around online for help in finding out who left that Yelp review. It was before this tragedy.” Taylor stumbled on the word.
This tragedy really was one too many.
If there was another murder in this town, she didn't think she'd be able to stay.
"If I find anything out, I'll let you know. I had asked because I thought if there was a tie between the reviewer and someone here, it could explain who was pestering her.”
Rousseau nodded. “That’s understandable. We can't assume that whoever was pestering her was the murderer, but if it wasn't, I'd be shocked."
The Sheriff interviewed all nine of the remaining ladies. It took them through what would've been lunch and kept Aviva from being able to prepare dinner. Aviva's Aunt Jesse was called into service and delivered three loaves of bread and nine chef salads as well as a big Tupperware bowl full of chocolate mousse. She left them on the front porch and waved through the window, perfectly executing a no-contact delivery.
“I don't know how any of you can eat.” Pyper pushed a spoon in and out of her pudding.
Nobody responded.
The house had been turned upside down looking for signs of a break-in, but the police did not tell any of them what had been found.
Maddie's room was blocked as a crime scene, and the deputies were still in discussion over whether the quarantined ladies should be forced off the premises or not.
Sheriff Rousseau spent hours in Jonah's office on the telephone. When he came back, he looked grim.
“Deputy Maria, Dr. Johnson, and I are now counted as an exposure risk and have been asked to quarantine for two weeks.” He followed this statement with a nonverbal growl. “The governor has requested that we stay here with you if there is room. Her bright idea was that we've already been exposed and are conveniently at the location of the crime.”
Belle caught Taylor's eye.
Taylor tried not to laugh in response. Nothing seemed worse than laughing right now, and yet, it was ridiculous.
Belle’s shoulders trembled with the nervous laughter she was holding in. “We have enough rooms for you all,” Belle said. “If you have someone that can bring your things, they can leave them on the covered porch. There would be no contact. My home is your home, sir."
Sheriff Rousseau grumbled again. "She can't make us quarantine here. And she certainly can’t make you, Doctor.” He turned to the coroner, who shrugged.
Maria nodded. "I can stay sir. It's not a problem."
"Good.” He grimaced, his mask shifting up and down under the extreme contortions of his face. “I will as well.”
The coroner sighed heavily. “If you don't mind,” he said, “I live alone with my dog. It won't hurt anything if I go home, and it would save me having to find someone to take care of him.”
"Completely understandable.” The Sheriff’s hooded hazel eyes looked as though he wished he had a dog at home to take care of. “Get home. Stay safe. Let us know if you have any symptoms.”
“Sure thing.” The coroner exuded relief as he excused himself.
"You should eat something," Belle said. "You, too.” She gestured to Maria. “Please. I know there’s just nine to-go boxes, but these salads are huge. There’s plenty.”
"Go ahead, Deputy. I need to make a few phone calls." The Sheriff stomped out.
“Aviva,” Taylor said, “I think we have all the requests from earlier. Could you put another call to your aunt for the food order?”
“Sure thing.” Aviva gave a quick salute and headed back to her kitchen.
Taylor wished she could give everyone a concrete task. Having something practical to do was one of the best ways to handle shock and grief.
During the officially scheduled free time, Taylor hid in the library. She slouched in a deep leather armchair as far from that Cabinet of Curiosities as she could get. She didn't want to think about how the Boone knife had gotten out. She preferred to think a stranger had broken in. Unfortunately, she hadn’t personally checked the cabinet after those cocktail swords had appeared at the table. Whoever had slipped those out of the claws of the little rat skeletons may have taken the bone-handled knife as well.
The library had good phone reception, and Taylor was grateful for Jonah's insistence on the highest tech communications possible in the old house. So, from her sheltered position in the old leather chair, she dialed Graham Dawson, the man she would like to think of as her boyfriend, but who seemed terribly hard to pin down.
After a few passionate words of greeting, Taylor told him all about the murder and how the sheriff had quarantined with them. “I was thinking maybe it would be a great time for you to come down. You could be our hands and feet and eyes and ears in town. If anybody saw anything or knows anything, you could be the first to hear. It could be a great story for you.”
“Oh man.” Graham sounded excited. “I love the idea, but there's no way. I can't leave Portland. Have you been keeping an eye on these protests? I’m downtown every single night. I'm embedded with the people. It's the most powerful thing I've ever been a part of.”
“I’ve been hearing about that.” Taylor deflated. The protests in Portland were national news. Her little murder could hardly compare to a journalist.
“I feel like something new is happening,” he said. “I'd come to Comfort in a heartbeat if it was a choice between a good story here and helping you. But this is so much more than that. This is gonna change the world.” His voice was full of awe.
She'd followed his stories of the Portland Black Lives Matter protests with fascination. They’d been going on for a couple of weeks now, and several times she had wished she felt brave enough to join them. It hadn’t just been fear of the virus that kept her away. She was scared of letting her real feelings about something political be shown. Too many years of keeping her opinion to herself for the sake of sales had paralyzed her.
“There's nothing like it,” Graham had continued. “The breaking glass sounds like a bomb. The beanbag bullets hit like grenades. The crowd cries with the voice of the nation.”
She let him go on like that for a while, speaking in soundbites, though she was sure he was sincere.
“I'm sorry Graham,” Taylor interrupted him when she had heard enough. “I'm kind of in a fog right now. Things are a little rough here.”
"Man. I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't mean to make it all about what's going on here. It must be awful for you. You knew the woman who was killed pretty well, didn’t you?"
“Yeah. My heart’s in this one differently. It’s like when my mom died. It hit too close to home. I'm going to let you go so I can have a quiet think. But hey, I'm proud of you.”
There was a pause, then Graham spoke, his voice was lower, and he choked on his words a little. “That means so much. You can't even know."
She stared at her phone. She did not want to have a quiet think. She wanted comfort. Someone to tell her she was going to be okay.
It was almost an instinct to call the one p
erson who never really made her think.
Hudson East, her absurdly handsome ex-boyfriend, was crushed on her behalf. "Did you at least have a chance to talk before she died?” he asked. “I've never been comfortable with the role I played in the end of your friendship."
“You would have been far less comfortable if you hadn't said anything. Especially if it had turned out she had been inappropriate with Belle."
“It's a hard line to walk, saying things that need to be said even though they might cost friendships. But I've always found that it's the right thing to do.”
“You’ve never been interested in the easy life, have you?”
“Seems like choosing the easy life is the best way to set someone else up for the hard life,” Hudson spoke thoughtfully.
Taylor wondered if he was thinking of his ex-girlfriend Molly Kay who had recently been killed. Their short fling had left her with a child that she’d kept a secret till the boy was five—hard for her and hard for him. There was a lot to unpack in that situation, but…it really wasn’t any of her business. “We’re all quarantined together. The guests, the staff, Sheriff Rousseau and Deputy Maria. I'm not sure how much detective stuff he can do from the mansion if the killer was an intruder. But if one of us killed her, they're not going to get away now.”
“I know every single woman in that house.” His words came out slowly, again, with care. “You wouldn't think I'd know Jeanne, because she's not from around here, but her little brother and I worked together for a while at Zee construction. I can’t picture a single one of you as a murderer.”
“I would've said exactly the same thing last night.” They were silent for a moment, Taylor wondered why she had considered him someone who didn't make her think. He was wise. He was thoughtful. He was a good listener. He was the handsomest and fittest man she'd ever met and a really gifted lover. Her cheeks warmed up. Selfish reasons to love a person, but nonetheless… “Have you been able to do anything fun with Larry this summer now that some things have opened up again?"
“We’ve gone to Enchanted Forest three times,” Hudson spoke with pride. “It's about the only thing that's open, and it is an absolute blast with the little guy. His favorite is the bumper cars. My favorite is the dragon hunting ride. We both like the pizza and water light show.”
“How’s Kelly doing?” Kelly was Larry's aunt and Hudson's partner.
There was another long pause. “Kelly is with her folks for a while. Her mom had corona early on. She was in the hospital for two months. When she got out, she just wasn't getting any better, so Kelly went to her. She's over in Bend.” He paused again.
“I’m sorry.”
“It is absolutely amazing to have Larry all to myself, though. It's like a dream come true. Not that I wanted Kelly’s mom to get sick. Or Molly to die! I sound horrible. Sorry.”
Taylor interrupted his embarrassed apology. “In a world that is desperately bleak right now you found something positive."
“Yeah, I have. I'll be honest, I'm not sure that Kelly's going to come back when she’s done taking care of her mom. Come back to me, I mean. She's sweet, but she seems so young for her age. At first, I thought raising this little man with her sister had matured her, and our age difference wouldn’t matter, but I was wrong.”
“She didn't seem young when I met her.” Taylor tried to hide her pleasure at the idea that Hudson had not fallen in love with Kelly Kay.
“Yeah, it's funny. It's the kind of thing you only notice after a little time together. I thought I'd never get over you and then this pretty young girl showed up with my kid. I thought this was my chance. I'd show you that I wasn't going to be lovelorn the rest of my life. Kelly, Larry, and I would be a family. I could have it all.” He paused to let out a low whistle. “I sound mature, don’t I?”
“I…I’m sorry.” Embarrassment tied Taylor’s tongue. She was horrified at how gratifying it was that his dreams hadn’t come true, even though she was sure she didn’t want him back.
“If Kelly, right now, at twenty-four years old, was who she’ll be when she hits forty, I'd be interested. But she's not that woman, yet, and I don't know if I can wait for her.”
“That’s tough.” Hudson was the perfect man on paper. No one understood how she could have been drawn to someone like Graham instead. And now, with so many weeks away from each other, she often wondered herself. But she knew one thing. If she could be tempted away from Hudson by the first person with a crooked smile who believed in her, then she hadn’t been in love. No matter what happened with Graham Dawson, living his dream reporter life, she’d let Hudson get away, because she didn’t really want him.
Chapter Ten
The nine ladies quarantined at the Boone-Love house were doing their best under extreme circumstances. There was a brightness, brittle though it was, to their smiles. An unfortunate reflection on how the presence of a man made them feel safer.
Taylor hunted her sister down. She needed to know the plan for the rest of the day. Where should the women be? What should she be doing with them? She wasn’t in control of the schedule and it stung. Taylor found Belle on the covered front stoop of the smallest of the outbuildings, but she was engrossed in a phone call.
Sissy would be able to tell Taylor what to do, though it irked her to admit it.
Walking back across the property to the house it occurred to Taylor Deputy Maria would have an opinion as well, so she changed plans.
Taylor found Maria in the parlor. She'd commandeered a straight-backed chair, and nesting side table, to create a workspace for herself.
"Sorry to bother you." Taylor hovered in the archway between the foyer and the parlor. Maria shut her laptop. "What was really going on with Maddie?"
Taylor stared for a minute, not comprehending. She’d already been questioned. What more was there to say?
"Pull up a chair. Let's talk." Deputy Maria’s tone was all work. This wasn’t going to be a friendly chat.
Taylor did as she was told. She grabbed a straight-backed chair with a thin horsehair-filled seat that forced her into a stiff position. She felt like she had been called in to the principal.
"It would be really nice if this was an outsider job." Deputy Maria glanced over her shoulder. "But an outsider would have had to come into the building, find the cabinet, steal the knife, make their way upstairs, and kill Maddie without being noticed. When was the last time you guys saw her?"
"Dinner time. I assumed after she found those cocktail swords there was no way she would attend any of our planned events. She had the key to my place. It’s a pleasant walk, and the weather is nice. And she's an adult." Taylor felt defensive, like Maria was accusing her of something. Not murder, exactly, but maybe withholding evidence.
"An adult under quarantine, but I digress. The quarantine situation isn’t the law. We couldn't arrest her for staying alone in a different house." Maria pinched her lips together in annoyance. "Rousseau, the coroner, and I will get in a lot of trouble if we don't properly quarantine, because we work for the state. But the rest of you? It's just a mess. Oregon's infection and death numbers have remained low, and I want to keep it that way. But that's not why I asked you to sit down. Everyone agrees nobody saw Maddie after dinner, so any one of you could have gone in there and killed her before the fire."
"Or after the fire." Taylor tried to cross her legs but felt awkward and unbalanced. "Or anytime in the middle of the night. Or before breakfast. During the fire and during breakfast, we were all together. It would have been easy for an outsider to do all of that. They could have come in through the French windows in the library.”
“Everyone was together except Aviva, who was cooking, and Belle, who was helping to serve, and Sissy, who was some kind of go between, as well, am I correct?”
Taylor nodded. “Kind of, but….”
“But there were only moments here and there, short moments, when any one of them were entirely alone, right?”
“Right.”
"Belle sa
id you have latex gloves available at the disinfectant station in every room. Hand sanitizer, gloves, wipes, masks, anything anyone would need to keep safe from the virus. Or as it turns out to clean up after a murder. We dusted the weapon and doorknobs for fingerprints. And we dusted the doors of the case. But it’s a blurry mess. Whoever did it wore gloves.”
“And that could be any of us,” Taylor murmured. The gloves had seemed like such a good idea when they were planning ways to keep everyone safe from infection.
"Everyone knows you and Belle had a motive,” Maria continued her calculated summation of the murder. “The things that actually motivate a person to kill often look weak to an outsider. Not enough money to die over, that sort of thing. There are enough people here that I bet have motives just as compelling as yours. What do you know about Courtney's daughter, Jubilee?"
"Nothing. I’d never met Courtney before this weekend and hadn’t even heard of anyone named Jubilee.”
"That's too bad. I'm incredibly curious about that situation. Mother-bear syndrome is often the strongest motive for murder."
Taylor agreed. Mother-bear syndrome, as Maria called it, had been the root for several murders that Taylor was familiar with.
"Have you talked to your grandma lately?” Maria asked.
"No." Taylor didn't elaborate. She’d video chatted with her grandparents once a month since the quarantine, but those chats had been short and shallow. The wound left behind from the sharp words Grandma Quinny had said about Taylor's mom wouldn’t bite forever, she was sure. But she’d been guarded since the troubles with the Sugar Daddy murders.
Isolation during pandemic had allowed her hurt feelings to fester. If she had been able to visit them in person, it would have been different. She’d have gone to see Grandpa Ernie, and somehow, things would have been okay. But as it stood, forgiveness would be an entirely internal task, one Taylor could put off indefinitely.