Inherit the Wool

by Betty Hechtman

  “It was a heart attack, but there seem to be some extenuating circumstances,” he said. “Now, if you could tell me what you know about Vanessa Peyton-Wilson-Ryerson.” He paused as he wrote something down. “Beyond that she has too many names.”

  “The extenuating circumstances are like what caused the heart attack, right?” He let out a tired breath and nodded. “I know about the air bubbles,” I said.

  “I believe the technical term is air embolism,” he said.

  “And that makes it look like homicide.” I watched his shoulders drop in frustration.

  “Right now we’re just calling it suspicious. Now that we’ve got all of that out of the way, I’m ready for you to tell me what you know.”

  I took a deep breath and began. As soon as he heard that this group of retreaters were people I knew from college, his expression changed to deep interest. “So what was the connection between all of you?”

  I tried to be vague and say we’d met in a gym class and been teammates.

  “Teammates, huh? What was your sport?” He didn’t have his pen poised to write anything and I got the feeling the question was more out of personal curiosity than anything about Vanessa’s death.

  “If you have to know, we were called the Baller-rinas and we did a rhythm ball routine.”

  He actually chuckled. “Rhythm balls? Here I was thinking a real sport like basketball or badminton.” He scribbled something down. “And you’ve all stayed close since you graduated?”

  “I can’t speak for the others, but I just reconnected with them.” It was just beginning to register that Vanessa was dead and all that it meant.

  “I’m going to have to talk to all of them,” he said. “It would help if you wouldn’t make me out to be the enemy.” He gave me a pointed look. “And don’t think you can solve it on your own. Don’t even try. You can’t be objective since they’re all your friends.”

  While he’d been talking, the obvious had sunk in. If it was homicide, Vanessa had been killed by someone in the group. Someone who was expecting the cause of death to be listed as a heart attack and therefore considered natural. I had a proposition for him I thought would help both of us. “What about if we left it that she died of a heart attack with no mention of it being suspicious? The killer would think they were home free and let down their guard.”

  “We,” he yelped. “There’s no we in this.” I could practically see his blood pressure rising and I put my hand up to stop him.

  “What I meant was that we both have something to gain. They’ll be much more open to you if they don’t think they’re suspects in a possible homicide. And I still have a retreat to run, and it would certainly go a lot better for me if they didn’t think that one of them was a murderer.” I left out that they’d be more likely to be open to me as well. No matter what I said to him, I planned on getting to the bottom of what happened.

  He seemed a little dubious but was clearly thinking over what I’d said as I watched his eyes flit back and forth. When his eyes finally stopped, he let out his breath like he’d come to a decision. “You make a good point about them clamming up. It’s not official anyway until the medical examiner finishes investigating. I suppose I could leave it that she succumbed to a heart attack.” He peered at me directly. “But I’ll still need to talk to everyone in your group.”

  “But it can’t seem like you’re interrogating them. It needs to seem like you’re just shooting the breeze. You could join us for knitting. It’s a known fact that when people get together to knit they talk a lot, and their guards would certainly be down,” I said, and he looked like he was going to choke. “Okay, maybe that won’t work.” I took a moment to consider other possibilities. “How about this: everybody knows that cops are under a lot of stress—you could say that you’re trying to counteract it by meditating and that part of your practice is teaching others how to do it. I can tell my group that I’ve added it as an activity.”

  His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. “Meditating, me? Have you been talking to Mrs. Borgnine? She’s been on me to try relaxing that way instead of a few beers.” He shook his head. “No way would that work. How can I claim to teach anybody how to do it when I don’t even know how to do it myself?”

  I put on a friendly smile. “All you really have to do is go sit at the beach and stare at the ocean. I’ve listened to enough meditators at Vista Del Mar as they go through their preparations. I can tell you what to say. Nobody knows what you’re really thinking about while you’re sitting in the sand. And the walk to and from the beach would give you a chance to get to know your students.”

  I was surprised when he didn’t immediately try to dismiss the idea. “Do you really think your friends would buy it?” He looked down at himself.

  “You might want to change your wardrobe,” I offered.

  “To what? I’m not wearing some kind of caftan or anything.”

  “What about track pants and a T-shirt?” I said, and he brightened.

  “Now we’re talking. And when Mrs. Borgnine objects, I’ll just tell her I’m going undercover.” We agreed on a time and place. “Say, what happened?” he said as I got up to leave. “There were no muffins this morning.”

  I cringed, realizing I’d never done my baking.

  Chapter Twelve

  The hospital volunteer gave me a steely look as I left. I’m sure he was disappointed that he didn’t get to hear our whole conversation. I was glad that Lieutenant Borgnine was being so reasonable this time. He said he would ask Dr. Gendel to keep the air bubble story to himself for now. I supposed it was understandable that I’d forgotten about the Blue Door’s desserts and the muffins for the town’s coffee spots, but it still upset me. It had never happened before.

  I sat in my car and made a bunch of apologetic phone calls to the coffee places who’d been expecting muffins, and my final call was to Tag about the Blue Door desserts. I was worried how he would take it since anything out of order seemed to push him close to the edge. It turned out not to be a problem. Word of the bomb scare had already spread around Cadbury and he was in a panic about Lucinda.

  “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to her,” he said in a frantic voice. I had to reassure him that his wife was fine and there was no need to go to Vista Del Mar to make sure. Thank heavens word about Vanessa hadn’t reached him or he really would have been upset. I promised him I’d tell Lucinda to call him. We worked out the dessert situation. He’d get ice cream from a local place that made their own so he could legitimately call the dessert handmade.

  I spent the whole drive back to Vista Del Mar practicing what I would say to the group about Vanessa and how I would try to save the weekend. Lieutenant Borgnine had admonished me not to try to solve the mystery of who had injected Vanessa with the air and I hadn’t argued, so he probably thought I was agreeing. But of course, I wasn’t. Let him talk to them one by one, but I’d have them for the rest of the weekend.

  I detoured home before going to Vista Del Mar. Julius did some figure eights around my ankles while I picked up the cordless and called Frank. Since I couldn’t tell my group about what really happened to Vanessa, he would be my sounding board and he might have some interesting thoughts.

  Now that there was caller ID there was always the chance that he wouldn’t pick up when he saw it was me. But he got it on the third ring. He’d barely gotten out a hello when I said one of my retreaters had died.

  “We’re talking about those girls with the balls? One of your college friends?” I heard his chair squawk and I knew I’d gotten his interest and he was sitting up straight. I was glad he was sitting up this time. I had watched him trying to lean further back in the chair as it let out squeaks of complaint and I had this mental image that one day the chair would not be able to take it anymore and would somehow catapult him out of it.

  “Feldstein, I can’t believe it. Tell me what happened. Was it something with one of those balls? Did she get hit in the he
ad or something? You never exactly described what they were like. Hard or soft?” he said.

  “It had nothing to do with the balls. And for your information, they’re like smaller basketballs.”

  “Oh,” he said. I heard the squeak of his chair and I figured he’d gotten tired of sitting up straight and had leaned back again. “I’m all ears.”

  When I’d finished telling him the events of the evening, I heard him chortle. “Feldstein, I don’t how you do it, but you get involved in the most twisted situations. A fake bomb, tainted wine and a syringe full of air as a murder weapon.”

  “Now that I hear it coming from someone else it does sound pretty strange.”

  “You do realize the bomb thing was a diversion,” he said. Of course he was right. I hadn’t had time to put the pieces together and hadn’t really thought about it. I wasn’t going to admit that to him, though.

  “Yeah, right. I figured that right away,” I said, trying to sound like it was true.

  “And all of your ball team are suspects,” he added.

  “There’s someone else, too,” I said. “He didn’t register on his own. Someone anonymously invited him. He said they promised him a big story.” I realized what I’d said made no sense and backtracked, explaining he was a reporter. “He didn’t exactly say it, but I think he’d like to move up the food chain and could use a juicy scoop.”

  “Hmm, a guy in the midst of all you gals,” he said.

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “We all just knew him.” There was no way I was going to mention my crush or that kiss in the rain. But Frank being the crack detective he was picked up something in my tone.

  “You’re leaving something out, Feldstein. That cop who lives down the street has some competition, doesn’t he?”

  I finally told Frank about the romantic moment with Zak. My old boss chuckled. “I knew there was something more.” He let out his breath and his manner changed. “So, what’s the plan? Did you call me for advice or just to tell me about your latest adventure?” The chair made more noise and I could tell he was shifting position.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I guess I want your advice. But first I should explain that for now, we’re going to leave it that Vanessa died of a heart attack with no mention of how it happened.”

  “When you say we’re, who exactly do you mean?” Frank asked.

  “I’ve told you about Lieutenant Borgnine before, right?”

  “That’s who the we’re is? You always made him sound like the enemy. Well, cops usually are where PIs are concerned. They don’t like us messing in their business.” Julius had jumped in my lap and was playing cuddle cat. I told Frank about the guise Lieutenant Borgnine was going to use to talk to my group.

  Frank responded with a belly laugh. “I wish I could be there to see that.” There was a change in Frank’s tone and I knew he was getting impatient and an abrupt goodbye was coming soon.

  “So any thoughts?” I said quickly.

  “If it was me, I’d want to know who invited your kiss-in-the-rain guy. It was an odd way to kill someone and the killer would have to have some specialized knowledge.”

  “Like a reporter might have,” I said. “Hmm. You think that maybe Zak concocted the anonymous story and invited himself?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know.” I thought of something else. “He didn’t show up for our group activity last night,” I said. “Or at least not that I saw.”

  “Sounds like you’re on the right road. Keep it up and keep me posted.” I heard background noises like he was straightening up his desk. “Got to go. A new client is coming in. Ka-ching.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The breakfast bell had already rung when I crossed over to Vista Del Mar. As I reached the end of the driveway and turned toward the Sea Foam Dining Hall, the smell of coffee mixed with pancakes and bacon came wafting my way. Breakfast was my favorite meal at Vista Del Mar, though at the moment eating was hardly uppermost on my mind.

  I had no trouble finding my group. They were at the same table they’d been at for dinner the night before. There were no assigned tables and it just seemed that once a group had picked out a spot, they stuck to it all weekend.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself as I looked over the group. Lucinda was acting as host, circling the table with the coffeepot. She was perfectly put together, as usual. She’d let her hair go back to its natural dark brown and was wearing it short in sort of a pixie style. Courtney’s glossy dark hair had fallen forward as she hovered over some documents. Elizabeth was cutting her pancakes into neat little pieces while her eyes kept searching the room. Was she on the lookout for Kevin St. John, I thought with a shudder. Lauren was the only one who seemed to be intent on eating. Even from a distance I could see her overflowing plate and the way she seemed to be savoring every bite. Zak was leaning back in his chair with his arm over the back of it, drinking coffee and checking out his surroundings.

  They all looked so normal, and I was going to share news that was going to shake them all up—well, all but one of them.

  “Hey, Casey,” Lucinda said, grabbing a coffee cup and filling it for me. She even pulled out an empty chair. I saw her looking at me a little too long and there was a question in her eyes. She knew me so well, she’d already figured out that something was wrong.

  “I guess Princess Vanessa is sleeping in,” Elizabeth said, looking toward an empty chair.

  I could have grabbed the moment and broken the news then, but I decided that instead of just blurting it out, it was better to ease into it. It’s what I called the cat is on the roof approach. Besides, the cup of coffee I’d had earlier had worn off and I needed another jolt of caffeine. I wanted to be completely alert and watch how they all reacted to the news. Would any of them have a tell, like maybe the news wasn’t such a surprise? Or the opposite and overreact.

  “You should eat something,” Lucinda said. “Shall I get you a plate of food?”

  The food was served cafeteria style and one of the pleasures for me was creating my own little buffet, getting tastes of all the breakfast treats they offered. “Thanks, but I’ll get it myself,” I said. My stomach still felt uneasy from the night before and I thought getting some food in it would help. And it gave me a little more time to stall. I looked back at the table and they were all doing their thing like it was a regular morning. My news was going to change all that, even the edited version. A difficult weekend was just about to get even worse.

  When I got to the food line, I saw that Cloris was working as server. I knew most of the staff at Vista Del Mar, though some more than others. Cloris was one I knew better. She was working there while she went to a community college studying hospitality. I could vouch for her natural ability in that field. She knew I loved their breakfast, and without me saying a word she’d already started making a plate up for me with perfectly scrambled eggs, silver-dollar pancakes oozing with melted butter, cheese blintzes with a dab of strawberry jam and sour cream, and a fruit cup with sliced strawberries, cantaloupe and pineapple.

  I thanked her, and as she always did, she said, “It’s my pleasure,” as she handed me the plate to put on my tray. For a brief moment I lost myself in the delicious smells and forgot about the task ahead. But only for a moment.

  My heart rate had already picked up as I turned to walk back to the table mulling how best to break the news. Should I say that Vanessa wasn’t sleeping in unless they were talking about the big sleep? I dismissed that as too abrupt. I was deep in thought and temporarily lost track of my surroundings. But suddenly everything came back in focus as I saw Kevin St. John had come into the dining hall and gone directly to our table. In a flash, the mood changed and I saw all of them freeze with their eyes open extra wide. Lucinda looked in my direction and put her hands to her head in concern.

  I rushed to join them. “I wanted to offer my condolences to your group. I had no idea that you hadn’t shared the sad news with them,” the m
anager said in a tone full of reproach. He looked at my plate of food. “I guess you were too busy thinking about your breakfast.”

  He issued another “sorry for your loss” and patted Elizabeth on the shoulder before walking away. I noticed he dropped the somber expression as he went to a nearby table and greeted the guests. I put my plate on the table but didn’t sit. I felt what I had to say came better if I was standing.

  “What happened?” Elizabeth said. “He didn’t give any details even though I asked.”

  I was still intent on the cat-on-the-roof approach and I started with my finding her on the ground in the Lodge after the bomb scare. “Was she drunk?” Elizabeth demanded. “Maybe that wasn’t her first glass of wine.”

  “Vanessa might have been into wine and—as in wine with something added like a tranquilizer. She said she was under a lot of stress,” Courtney said.

  “I don’t think it was the wine,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “The paramedics came and took her to the hospital.” I mentioned riding along and then talking to the doctor. “It was a heart attack and I hoped she would pull through.”

  “A heart attack?” Zak said. “Not what you’d expect from someone her age. But obviously it happens.”

  “But she seemed fine, though a little frustrated with the knitting. It seems so sudden.” Lauren looked at her plate of food and sighed as she pushed it away. “She looked okay when she was making that fuss about getting the wine. I just can’t believe it.”

  “I don’t get it. How could she be fine and then dead?” Elizabeth said. “Something must have caused the heart attack. Maybe it was connected to the bomb scare. It’s a known fact that people can get scared to death.”

  “Bomb scare?” Zak repeated. “Is that what all the fuss was about?”

  “Then you weren’t there?” I said.

  He blew out his breath. “Sorry, friends, but an evening of knitting and watching people play Monopoly was a little too slow for me. I caught an Uber and went to check out some of the local color.” He glanced around at the group. “So tell me about this bomb thing.”