by Krista Davis
Marlee tried to covertly adjust it, but it was too late. I had seen her real hair. If she realized it, she gave no indication. She watched a dog splashing in the lake. “It’s so peaceful here,” she said. “No noisy traffic or congestion.”
“Marlee! There you are,” Rae Rae called from the door.
“Oh my gosh!” cried Marlee. “What time is it? I’m supposed to have dinner with the group.” Marlee looked at her Apple Watch. “I’m late!”
Marlee set Trixie on the terrace floor and jumped up. She briefly rested her hand on my arm. “Thank you for being nice and listening to me babble. I feel better just having talked to someone.” She ran into the inn.
I got up and followed in the same direction.
Rae Rae was dressed in an eye-catching purple dress with a rhinestone-encrusted V-neck. “It’s like herding puppies to get these kids together. Finch is the worst. I don’t know what’s up with him. He’s always last. At least I know where to find Jim. All I have to do is look for a crowd of Pippin ears. He’s usually in the center of it.” She gasped. “What did you think of Howard’s little show?”
“Are you sure it was a show? He’s not really afraid of something?”
“He always has to be the center of attention. That was complete and utter nonsense about being murdered next. Wouldn’t you think he would be sorry about Diane’s death? He knew her very well, but he didn’t so much as mention her name! How on earth could he leap to the possibility that he would be the next victim? Can I tell you how glad I am that I didn’t marry him? Imagine what an awful life that would have been. No, thank you!”
I debated whether to tell her he claimed to still carry a torch for her. Might as well. Maybe she would be flattered. “Apparently, he still loves you.”
Fourteen
Rae Rae’s smile vanished. And then she laughed so hard that tears ran down her face. “That would be such a nice thing to hear—if he had ever loved me. The man doesn’t know how to love. He has never given a single thought to anyone but himself. Hmm, I guess he does know how to love someone after all—himself!” She walked away still laughing.
I suspected I would find Oma in the private kitchen. I swung the door open. Sure enough, Oma was eating dinner. She had fed Gingersnap and Stella. Twinkletoes sat on the fireplace hearth washing her face.
“Don’t you feed Twinkletoes?” asked Oma.
“Of course I do!”
“She acts as if she is starving.”
“Acts would probably be the operative word. I left food for her in my apartment this morning. I guess she didn’t want to wait for me to decide it was dinnertime. Thanks for feeding her. What’s for dinner?”
“Pasta primavera. It’s delicious!”
I helped myself to some, poured a glass of iced tea, fed Twinkletoes, and joined Oma at the table.
She chatted about inn matters and my father’s second wife while we ate. Only when I had finished eating did she ask, “What is this fentanyl?”
I blinked at her. “Fentanyl? It’s a very powerful drug. A small amount can kill you. Apparently, it was designed for patients who were in terrible pain. Why are you asking about it?”
“That is what killed Diane.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Oma pursed her lips. “The new doctor in town, Engelknecht, is very good. When Diane was transported to the office of the medical examiner in Roanoke, he followed the transport. He was highly suspicious because he knew Diane was in good health and there was no apparent cause of death. He asked them to expedite a test for fentanyl. How can such a dangerous drug be here in Wagtail?”
“There are people in pain everywhere, I guess. If Diane was healthy, I suppose it wasn’t prescribed to her. I can’t imagine that she took it intentionally. I hear a tiny bit can kill a person.”
Oma placed her hands on the sides of her face. “Someone must have poisoned her with it. Does one swallow it?”
I didn’t know. I’d heard of fentanyl but hadn’t paid it much attention. I pulled out my phone and looked it up. “It says here that it comes in a patch, a lozenge, or powder. When people want to get high they swallow, inhale, or inject it.” No wonder Oma hadn’t wanted to talk about it while we ate.
“Does it have any flavor?” asked Oma.
“It says it doesn’t have a distinctive taste, which is one of the problems with identifying it.”
“Holly, there is one other problem.” Oma sighed. “You need to know because it could impact us.”
It couldn’t be that serious. But Oma looked very worried. I sipped my tea and waited for her to tell me.
“They look at the stomach contents when making the autopsy.”
I nodded. I had heard that before.
“The most recent thing she ate was a brownie.”
I shrugged. “So?”
“I presume it could have come from one of the bakeries in town. But we were serving brownies with powdered sugar on top yesterday.”
Fifteen
That could be a problem. “Did Diane eat here yesterday? I don’t remember seeing her at the inn.”
“We will have to check with Shelley and Mr. Huckle. They would remember. Holly, it would have been so easy to mix powdered fentanyl with powdered sugar and sprinkle it on a brownie.”
“Oma, don’t look so worried. And stop jumping to conclusions. In the first place, we didn’t poison any brownies. In the second place, maybe the fentanyl was injected or applied to her skin and it had nothing to do with the brownie she ate.”
Oma shook her head in disagreement. “If it was found in her stomach, then she ate it.”
“There must be half a dozen places or more in Wagtail where she might have bought brownies.”
Oma took a deep breath. “Poor Diane. Why would anyone want to kill her? Of all the people I can think of off the top of my head, she’s the one who minded her own business and was always a perfect lady.”
“Maybe there are things we didn’t know about her. She told me about shutting down a puppy mill. That was the right thing to do, of course, but the owner of that puppy mill might be angry with her.”
“Does Dave know about this?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll be sure to tell him. Now quit worrying so much. Do you want to watch the inn tonight or take our shift patrolling for dognappers?”
“Hmm?” She seemed to be thinking about something else. “Yes, that would be fine. You patrol. You excuse me?”
“Of course. I’ll clean up in here.”
She rose, and on her way out, she planted a kiss on the top of my head. Gingersnap and Stella followed her out the door. Poor Oma. I could tell how worried she was. She loved Wagtail. It had been her home for decades. “Trixie, we’d better figure this out.”
Trixie placed her paws on the edge of the seat of my chair. “You’re supposed to be thinking about who murdered Diane, not about pasta primavera.”
She didn’t give up, and she didn’t seem ashamed about it. I gave her a tiny bite of pasta.
I thought about Diane while I washed the dishes. It did seem more logical that someone local had murdered Diane. Still, there were at least two visitors in town who had known her once. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that she died the night of their arrival. And who was to say that they hadn’t been in touch more recently than they claimed? Just because Rae Rae said she hadn’t known Diane lived in Wagtail didn’t mean that was true. Could Rae Rae have ordered brownies upon arrival? Or had she baked them herself and brought them with her? Was she really looking for Camille and the gang at midnight when she went out on the golf cart? Or did she have a different destination? Like Diane’s house?
That line of thought brought me to another idea. Maybe the screen in Diane’s window had been torn for weeks or months. Could she have been an addict who took fentanyl on purpose? She never struck me as the type, but
I guessed anyone could become addicted to pain meds.
Leaving Trixie in the kitchen, I went to the professional inn kitchen in search of brownies. I found two pans in the refrigerator, waiting to be cut into squares and served. At this point, no powdered sugar had been dusted over the tops. I stared at them. It was only Oma’s conjecture that the fentanyl had been mixed with the powdered sugar. It could have been baked into a brownie. But topping it with powdered sugar would be quick and so easy that anyone could do it.
I rummaged in the pantry for powdered sugar and found several large bags of it. Someone could have tainted it with fentanyl between the manufacturer and the inn, I supposed. But if that had happened, if the brownie Diane had eaten came from the inn and it had been poisoned with powdered sugar, then wouldn’t more people have keeled over dead? I felt certain she wasn’t the only one to whom we had served a brownie.
I picked up the phone and called Dr. Engelknecht, who agreed to stop by.
I loaded the brownies and powdered sugar onto a tray and carried them into the private kitchen, where Trixie was sitting near the sink, looking up at a cabinet.
Setting the tray down, I watched her. It startled me when the door to the cabinet thudded as if someone had pushed it from inside and it banged shut again.
Trixie barked and pranced in a circle.
Surely, we didn’t have mice or rats. I walked closer, and a furry white head popped out of the cabinet and looked at us. “Twinkletoes! What are you doing in there?” She knocked a box of dog cookies down to the counter, jumped out of the cabinet, and fled. “Dog cookies?” I opened the cabinet door wider. Aha! Dog and cat treats.
Twinkletoes returned, hopped on the counter, and walked under my chin, rubbing against me.
“You sneak! You know you shouldn’t be up there. Was this a ploy to gain favor with Trixie by knocking her favorite treats down to the floor?” I asked her.
She purred, evidently quite pleased with herself.
I scooped up Twinkletoes and placed her on the floor. Even though it had been terrible behavior, I gave her a fishy cat treat, and Trixie received a cookie. I knew I was breaking every rule about animal training. I had just rewarded both of them for something they shouldn’t do, but they were so adorable, and Twinkletoes wasn’t just being sneaky. She was smart enough to know where those yummies were.
I was laughing when I heard Dr. Engelknecht’s voice in the lobby calling my name. I swung the door open. “Thanks for coming. That was quick.”
He walked into the kitchen. “I was in the neighborhood.” He gazed around. “I’ve never been in here before.”
“Only very special people are allowed in the private kitchen,” I joked. “When my dad and his sister were children, Oma felt they needed a room where the family could gather and eat privately. It can be taxing to always be in the public eye. Plus it’s hard to have private family conversations if you constantly eat with everyone else.”
“I suppose it can be. I think I’d hang out in here all the time.”
“Could I get you a cup of tea or coffee?”
“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love an herbal tea. It’s been a long day and I’m bushed.”
“Peppermint, lemon, or rose hip?”
“Peppermint!”
“Coming right up.”
He talked to Trixie and Twinkletoes while I made his tea and a strong cup of English breakfast tea for myself.
When we sat down at the table, I said, “I wanted to ask you about Diane.”
He held both his palms in the air. “Even though she’s dead, I can’t tell you much because of the privacy laws. Besides, the full report isn’t out yet. It could be several days before that happens. Given where she was found, it looked to me like she had been murdered, but there weren’t any obvious signs like knife wounds. I’ve been concerned about fentanyl, because it’s spreading across the country so fast. I had a hunch when I saw her, so I asked the medical examiner to rush a test for it. I needed to know if it’s in Wagtail, because we’ll be seeing other cases.”
“I understand completely. I only have one quasi-personal question about her, which I hope you can answer. Was Diane a drug addict?”
He snorted. “Okay, I will answer that one. Most certainly not.”
“So she wouldn’t have intentionally used fentanyl?”
“That’s more than one question, but I have no reason to think that would be the case.”
He gazed at the brownie pans.
“You know where I’m going with this,” I said. “Could someone have tampered with a brownie so that Diane consumed fentanyl without knowing it?”
He smiled. “Now that’s the kind of question I like. And one that occurred to me, as well as to the medical examiner. In a word, yes. Apparently, fentanyl can be almost flavorless, or very slightly bitter depending on the batch, but mixed with something sweet, it would probably be disguised. And it’s important to note that a surprisingly small amount can kill someone.”
“So it would be possible, for instance, to mix it with powdered sugar and dust it on top of one of these brownies?”
“Absolutely. It would be diabolical, but one could do it. What’s worse, a wicked person could blow it into someone’s face so they would inhale it or even get it in their eyes.”
“I guess this would be a better question for Dave, but do we have a fentanyl problem here in Wagtail?”
“They tell me it’s readily available in Snowball. I’d like to think that we don’t have a lot of drug dealers in Wagtail, but that doesn’t mean visitors don’t bring it with them.”
Dr. Engelknecht finished his tea. “I guess you know that it’s part of my job to investigate the circumstances of Diane’s death. I’ve heard you’re pretty good at solving murders, so I hope you’ll keep me in the loop about what you find out.”
“I’d be glad to do that.”
“Thanks. I’d better be getting home.” He rose to leave but stopped at the door. “Holly? May I take the brownies and powdered sugar to test them?”
Brownies were one of my favorite sweets. But I certainly didn’t want to take any chances. We couldn’t serve them to guests, and I wouldn’t dare eat them. I would have given them to Dave anyway. I gladly handed them over to Dr. Engelknecht.
Guests kept me busy for the next couple of hours. As usual, things settled down after dinner. Some guests were relaxing in their rooms, and others were out enjoying the balmy air of the summer night.
Gingersnap and Stella tore through the hallway, probably looking for Trixie and letting me know that Oma had finished whatever she was doing. The dogs accompanied me to the registration lobby.
“I’m ready to go on patrol,” I said.
Oma gazed at Stella. “Perhaps Stella should spend the night with Gingersnap and me?”
“Whatever you think is best.”
“Come on, Stella. We will wait for Casey in the main lobby. Ja?”
Trixie and I headed for the inn golf carts to go on dognapper patrol. She jumped up on the front seat with me, and I would have sworn she was smiling.
“You were meant to be a little sleuth, weren’t you?”
She nosed my pocket for a treat.
“Okay. Maybe you were meant to be a treat taster.”
She crunched happily on a tiny, thin, bone-shaped carob cookie. I started the electric golf cart, and we were off. I was always amazed by the lack of sound from the electric engine. You really could sneak up on someone.
It was a lovely Saturday night. Trendy pear-shaped lights glowed in backyards. Cats stole across the street to visit friends and chase mice. An occasional couple walked home from a late dinner.
For no particularly good reason, I steered toward Elm Street. The quiet engine made it easy to hear dogs barking. I guessed a lot of dogs were snoozing by now, because I heard very little yapping.
&
nbsp; The house Howard had rented was set back off the street. Nevertheless, I could see lights blazing from the windows. I didn’t hear voices or music or anything indicating a lively party. We drove on. It was a boring night in Wagtail. All things considered, though, that was a good thing.
I drove around the neighborhood and back by Howard’s rental. A lonely figure stood at the curb. I squinted to see her more clearly. It looked like Marlee. But as we neared and she saw the lights of the golf cart, she took off running toward Howard’s house.
I stopped the golf cart and stepped out. “Marlee?” I called. There was no answer.
Maybe she didn’t want to be seen at Howard’s house. Camille and I had told her it wasn’t a good idea. But sometimes people just had to find out for themselves. I hoped it would work out okay for her.
I shrugged and stepped back into the golf cart. This time I drove on streets closer to the stores and restaurants that lined the green. I heard a man yell, “Hey! Hey, you!”
I looked around to see if he was in trouble.
Unfortunately, it was Howard who tripped toward the golf cart, shaking his forefinger at me.
“I want a word with you,” he slurred.
Ugh. I wasn’t even close to him and I could smell the booze on his breath. “Do you need a ride home?”
“You! You turned me in to the cop. A pretend country bumpkin cop, that’s true. I was a smarter detective on TV than he is in real life, but still, you bet-bet-betrayed me.”
“Can I call someone to help you get home?” I asked.
He snorted and waved his arm at me in a jerking, intoxicated motion. “Honey, we are not on my turf right now, but beware, because I will not forget your treachery. You might want to watch your back.”
Sixteen
I should have been shocked by his threat, but all I could think of at that moment was how odd it felt to have a man who portrayed kind and wise characters on TV say such a thing.