A look of relief came to Catherine’s face. “You’re here for Hal?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’re upstairs taking care of him now, if you’d like to say goodbye again.”
Catherine plucked her cup of coffee from the table and brought it to her lips. “I would not.”
“How soon can we go home, Detective Reid?” Emily asked. “We really need to be getting back.”
“Well, that’s the bad news.” Reid tucked his hands into his pockets. “I’m afraid I need all of you to stay for a few more days at least.”
“A few more days?” Emily’s mouth fell open.
Reid nodded. “At least. Just until we clear a few things up.”
“That’s unacceptable, Detective Reid,” Jeremy said. “We have lives to get back to. Catherine and my nieces need to get back and establish a routine. Kenneth and I need to start the transition of leadership at our company.”
“I understand all that, Mr. Jepsen. But even if I wanted to let you leave, there’s no way for you to leave. The airport’s closed, and the rental car I saw in the parking lot isn’t going to make it over the puddle between it and the highway.”
“So we’re stranded?” Emily asked.
Catherine rolled her eyes. “For goodness’ sake, Emily. We’re at a hotel, not on a deserted island. If he needs us to stay, he needs us to stay. We’ll just be thankful we have the money to pay for a few more nights and try to make the best of it.”
“I think that’s a healthy attitude to have, Mrs. Jepsen.”
“Just Catherine, if you don’t mind.”
Bet he took note of that.
Reid nodded. “Catherine, right. If it’s okay with you folks, I’d like to talk to everybody on their own and get a sense of what they saw and heard that night. Everyone except the youngest girls. They’re minors, correct?”
Catherine nodded. “Yes.”
“Then you’re more than welcome to join their interview. In fact, I insist.”
Reid, Alexis, Melody, and Catherine went into the front parlor. Kenneth and the rest of the Jepsen clan scattered through the house.
I went into the kitchen to eat my serving of overnight oats and sausage, which kept me out of earshot of the parlor. But afterward, I went back into the dining room to clear everyone else’s dishes.
Curiosity got the better of me. I took my time with the dining room, laboriously loading every dish onto the cart and cleaning every little crumb off the table.
While I was there, I heard Catherine, Emily, and Jeremy Jepsen give their interviews. Catherine admitted to the fight, but played it down as a particularly vicious verbal spat. She stuck to her story about him falling and her not looking back to check. In fact… she used the exact same words.
Jeremy gave a robotic account of his night, saying that he took a sleeping pill when the storm started and hadn’t woken until the next morning. Emily said she bounced back and forth between her bathroom and the reading room, but claimed she never saw Harold after his argument with Ashley.
They were leaving out a lot of details—enough for all of them to technically be lying to a police officer—but that wasn’t what stuck out to me.
It was the smooth way they recounted the details. Nobody tripped up. None of them had to retract a statement claiming they misspoke. Not a single voice shook when they made statements they knew weren’t true.
It was almost like they’d used the last few days to rehearse.
When I couldn’t come up with anything else to do in the dining room, and couldn’t in good conscience put off the breakfast dishes any longer, I pushed the fully-loaded cart into the kitchen and got to work.
I had just about finished when I heard Reid’s voice from the kitchen door.
“Any chance Mrs. Margaret has a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge?” he asked. “I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since last time I was here. Do you think she’d share her recipe if I asked real nice?”
I turned to find him leaning against the doorframe, his hands folded across his chest.
For a second, my brain was too fuzzy to think so I blurted the first thing that came to my mind. “The Jepsens are lying. At least some of them are. Maybe all of them.”
Reid furrowed his brow and stared at me.
Slowly, I realized that he already knew they were lying. And now… he wanted to know how I knew.
“Melody Jepsen’s diary, remember? If the teenager was awake, someone must have heard something. But nobody even mentioned it. They all made it sound like he just walked back to the suite.”
“All right, slow down,” Reid crossed the kitchen and put his hand out to me, stopping just short of touching my arm. “Let’s start with the diary. Go get it. I wanna take a look.”
I nodded and went upstairs. After a knock to confirm nobody was in the room, I ducked in the suite the younger Jepsen sisters shared. I checked the pillow case first. No diary. I checked the suitcase and underneath the bed. Nothing. Defeated, I went back down to the kitchen.
“She must have it on her,” I said.
Reid shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I couldn’t use it without a warrant anyway, and they didn’t give me anything that would make a search warrant make sense.”
“The diary entry for the night her father died isn’t enough?”
“I didn’t read that. You did. Which makes it hearsay from a party who isn’t exactly neutral.”
“Oh, come on! You don’t seriously think I was involved with this?”
“No, I think you’re a well-meaning woman who wants to help the innocent members of this family get closure while protecting her loved ones,” he said. “It’s admirable. It’s also the same instinct that got you trapped with a killer not that long ago.”
A vision of arsenic-laced cookies flashed in my mind, offered on a china plate by a woman with a chilling smile.
I shivered. Before I could say anything else, Granny swept into the kitchen with Baby Ben balanced on her hip, humming a gentle tune.
When she spotted Reid, her eyes lit up. “Well, good afternoon, Detective.”
Reid’s shoulders relaxed. The stern look melted from his face, replaced by a bright smile.
“Mrs. Margaret, you are a sight for sore eyes,” he said. “Tell me there’s a pitcher of your famous tea lurking around here somewhere.”
Granny swatted at his arm with her free hand. “Bless your heart, of course there is. Laura, don’t just stand there. Get this hardworking man a glass of tea. I’m sure there’s ice by now. I swear, you’d think I didn’t teach her how to treat company.”
“That’s actually my fault, Mrs. Margaret. I distracted her. Now about that tea, do you use store-brand or name-brand? I’ve been trying to replicate it, and I can’t get the recipe right.”
“You’re a tea drinker?” Granny crooned. “Why, I never would have guessed.”
“Coffee in the morning and tea throughout the day.” Reid leaned down to Ben, pursing his lips and crossing his eyes. “Keeps me from getting jittery!”
Ben rewarded him with a giggle.
“You know, Laura knows all my recipes. When you finish up, she can give them to you.”
And he just won her over for life. I grumbled as I trudged to the fridge to grab the pitcher of tea.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Between his warnings and Granny’s none-too-subtle attempts at matchmaking, I’d had my fill of Detective Conner Reid a lot sooner than I anticipated. I managed to avoid him during lunch by eating in the office. Ashley and Coral seemed to enjoy the company. To be honest, I did too. Coral’s warm, furry body against my bare shin was one of my favorite sensations in the world and, with everything going on, it felt like I hadn’t seen Ashley in days.
I would have been content to stream a trashy TV show until someone missed me. Reid’s forced extension of the Jepsens’ vacation had sent Danielle into hostess overdrive. She probably wouldn’t miss me until dinner. Those precious few hours could have been my first real binge sessio
n since the guests arrived.
But Ashley was determined to talk about the case. So her laptop sat on the bookshelf in the corner.
“It’s so weird that you couldn’t find the diary,” Ashley said around a mouthful of sandwich.
“Not really. It was more of an art journal than a diary. She’s probably using it.”
“But then wouldn’t she have had it the day you found it?” Ashley countered.
I shrugged. “She was spending the afternoon with her family. Maybe one of them isn’t supportive of her art.”
“Probably Emily.” Ashley scowled. “I can see her delivering a backhanded compliment to everything that girl makes.
“Me too. That’s as good a reason as any for her to be secretive about it.” I set my empty sandwich plate aside and scooped Coral into my arms. She let out an impatient meow… until I rubbed the sweet spot between her ears. Then she rewarded me with a gentle purr.
“I’ll bet she loved it when that detective questioned her. Those deep, brooding eyes. Bet she tried to make him putty in her hands.”
“Pfft. That’d have the opposite effect on Reid.”
Ashley waggled her eyebrows “You know him well, do you?”
“Not him, just the type. Always on the job. Always looking for his suspect.”
“Which means he’s always trying to get someone justice,” Ashley said. “There are worse things.”
After lunch, I was ready to avoid Ashley for a little while, too. That was trickier than avoiding Reid. He set up on the main floor. As long as I stayed upstairs, I’d be fine. But Ashley was already in my best hiding place. Which left me three options: the upstairs sitting room, the patio attached to the sitting room, or outside—if I left through the back door.
The water is receding. Maybe I can get to the garden cottage.
I told Ash I would see her after dinner, gave Coco a quick kiss on the head, and made my way to the staircase. Emily Jepsen was on her way up. When she saw me, she smiled.
“Just who I was looking for,” she said. “I hate to be a bother, but would you change the sheets in our suite? Jeremy gets such horrible night sweats, and if we’re going to be here for another night or two, I’ve simply got to have a fresh set.”
You’d have had a fresh set if you let me refresh the room yesterday!
I gave her the warmest smile I could manage. “Sure, Emily. It’s no problem.”
It really wasn’t a problem. Avoiding Reid and Ashley was just as easy in a guest suite as it was outside. I went to the linen closet and grabbed new sheets, fresh pillow cases, and a clean set of hand and body towels.
Whenever I refreshed a room, I started with the bathroom. My logic was that if I started in the bathroom, then after I finished the bed, I would be out of the guests’ way.
I took a quick peek into the bathroom and saw, to my gratitude, that it didn’t need a scrub down or the trash bag changed. As I replaced the towels, the medicine bag on the counter caught my eye. It was the same shape as Harold Jepsen’s and had a similar design, but this bag was made of rich, chocolate brown leather. The bag in the executive suite was black.
There were two plastic medical pens sticking out of it. The kind diabetics used to deliver insulin injections.
Insulin… or epinephrine.
I leaned down to inspect the yellow label.
“What are you doing?” Emily Jepsen asked from behind me.
I tensed, but managed not to jump or scream in surprise. “Just figured you and Jeremy could use fresh towels.” I pointed to the discarded pile on the floor as proof.
Emily narrowed her eyes. “That’s very considerate. Thank you. Could you hurry with the sheets? I’d like to take a nap.”
I brushed past her and walked back into the main suite. It didn’t sound like Emily believed me, but the evidence was on my side. Still, she sat down on the couch and crossed her legs, watching as I stripped the bed.
“I don’t mean to pry, but is Jeremy allergic to cranberries too?” I asked as casually as I could manage.
“Why do you ask?” Emily’s voice tightened.
“Well, don’t tell my sister I told you, but if I know her, she’s going to break out her fanciest recipes while you’re still here. More than a few include cranberries, but since Harold is… no longer with us… she might not remember to avoid those recipes.”
Emily nodded in understanding. “I see. No, Jeremy isn’t allergic to anything. He carries—used to carry—Harold’s spare injector.”
That explained one epinephrine injector in Jeremy Jepsen’s medicine bag. It didn’t, in any way, explain two.
“Of course,” I said, smiling. “Then there’s no reason to bug Danielle. Thanks for clearing that up.”
I turned back to the bed, changing out the sheets and pillow cases in record time. Emily Jepsen stared at my back the entire time. When I was done, I gathered the dirty sheets and towels and got out of there as fast as I could.
This time, I didn’t go to the office. I didn’t go to the garden cottage either. I went straight downstairs to find Reid.
He was in the front parlor, sitting on the couch and reviewing a legal pad on the coffee table. And thankfully, he was alone. Reid looked up when he heard my footsteps.
“I found the missing epinephrine,” I whispered. “In Jeremy and Emily Jepsen’s room.”
“That’s… interesting.” Reid clicked the top of his pen. “But explainable. Allergies run in families. People carry backups.”
“Emily says there are no allergies,” I counted. “And a backup would explain one pen. Not two.”
“No… a backup wouldn’t explain two pens at all.” Reid flipped his legal pad closed. “And chronic alcoholism doesn’t explain abdominal wounds. I just heard from the corner. Harold Jepsen’s torso is covered in bruises.”
“He was punched?”
Reid shook his head. “More like kicked judging by the size and shape of the bruises. I don’t think a single one of them was honest with me.” He closed his notebook and climbed to his feet.
“From what they’ve told me… things haven’t exactly been roses and champagne for this family. You know how families go. Sometimes we prefer a pretty lie to the ugly truth.”
“You must really like them.”
“Some of them, yes.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s very likely one of them killed Harold Jepsen and the others are covering for them. But we won’t know how until the autopsy is finished.”
“How much longer?”
“Definitely past sunset, beyond that I don’t know. But a little face time might speed things along. I’ll be back in the morning. Until then, you have to stop investigating.”
“Right.”
“I mean it,” he said. “This could get dangerous and you’re trapped out here with them. I don’t like it. The best thing for everybody would be for you to avoid them.”
“It’s a hotel and they’re paying guests, Detective. In fact, you just insisted they stay that way for at least one more night. How am I supposed to avoid them?”
“Issues like that are why I told you to stay out of it in the first place.” Reid shrugged. “I don’t imagine it’ll be easy, but if one of them did kill Harold and realizes how much you know, they could come after you. While I’m at the coroner’s office.”
Heaven help me, but my heart fluttered a little.
“I’ll be careful, Detective Reid.”
I swear when I said it… I meant it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I went to the kitchen and told Danielle I hadn’t slept the night before and felt like crap. It was close enough to the truth not to make her suspicious. That bought me an afternoon off-duty, with my sister’s blessing. It also set me up to beg off dinner service. As much as I hated to leave Danielle and Andrew short a pair of hands, Reid was right.
Lying to “the help” was one thing, but lying to a police officer? I wouldn’t have believed any of the Jepsens capable of it if I hadn’
t heard them do it with my own ears. Half-truths and outright falsehoods were the Jepsen family’s native languages. If Reid found evidence that one of them had killed Harold, everything would be exposed.
There was no way to know how everyone would react. But one of them had already taken one life. What would a stranger’s matter?
When I got back to the office, Ashley was still there. She’d moved from the cot to Danielle’s office chair, put the wireless keyboard aside, and replaced it with her laptop.
“Dani didn’t need help with dinner?” Ashley pulled her legs up and folded them beneath her.
“Reid told me to make myself scarce around the Jepsens,” I said. “Which suits me just fine. I’d rather not have Emily Jepsen trying to set me on fire with her eyes all night.”
I wanted to stretch out on the couch, but that would have meant folding up the cot and putting it away. No thank you. The cot would do.
“You’re on the outs with her too?”
I nodded.
Ashley laughed. “It’s not like we’re trapped in a house with her for the duration or anything. Reid’s cute, but he’s not that bright.”
I heard the soft, rapid clicking of Ashley’s fingers against the keyboard.
“Actually, he pointed that out.” I rolled onto my stomach and looked at her. “He also told me to stop investigating before I learn too much.”
The clicking stopped.
Ash looked at me. “Are you gonna?”
“I’ll write notes. You keep Coco entertained.”
Ashley pointed at Coral, who had no trouble getting to the couch and was currently stretched out so her tiny body took up an entire cushion.
“Just a guess, but I think she’s fine. Besides, analog?” Ashley wrinkled her nose.
“What? I think better when I write than I do when I type.”
“You shoot in digital.”
“Yeah, I don’t get it either.”
Ashley went to her cot and I took over her spot at the desk. Then we got to work.
A Dead And Stormy Night Page 12