The Reunion

by Suzanne Rossi

  Glory shook her head and stared at him with wide eyes. “Gosh, not really. I only went a little way down the path on the right. It was dark and I didn’t want to twist an ankle in that gravel. I was returning when I saw someone, Dan, I think, charge up the steps. I caught a glimpse of someone else near the pathway to the pond, but don’t know who. I came back inside and worked my way around the ballroom again. I finally found Tom near the terrace doors.” She smiled. “At least he wasn’t drunk like I feared. It seems he was looking for me, and we just kept missing each other.”

  This was the most Glory had said all night, but for such a short time outside, she sure packed in a lot of information.

  “Did you see either Suzanne or Annabelle?” Meghan asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Like I said, it was really dark. Tom and I were about to call it a night when Eileen screamed the house down.”

  Carol sighed. “We spoke with Mary and Jack Samuels for a minute, and then returned to the dance floor. I didn’t even hear the scream.”

  “You sure ask a lot of questions,” Adam commented to Meghan. “Are you a cop?”

  Zach held his breath. Would everyone clam up now?

  She drained her coffee cup and set it on the table. “Hardly. I’m a mystery novelist. I guess my mind works that way. I want to know why, and how, and who. Occupational hazard.” Meghan crossed her legs. “You know who I didn’t see tonight? Monica Evans. Is she here? I can’t believe she’d miss the twentieth reunion.”

  “She’s here,” Marcie asserted. “I spoke with her just before dinner. Her husband wasn’t feeling well and didn’t come. I think she may have gone home before all the excitement.”

  “That’s too bad,” Carol replied. “If she thought for one moment she’d miss seeing Suzanne Wayland floating in the koi pond, she’d have stuck around.”

  Zach drank some of his now lukewarm coffee. Seems a lot of people wouldn’t have minded finding Suzanne in the koi pond.

  Glory sat up straight with an earnest look on her face. “Oh, don’t be unkind, Carol. I know Suzanne’s hard to get along with. She and I had words earlier this evening, but she was upset. Dave Coryell left her alone most of the night.”

  “If Monica wanted to see anyone in the pond, it would have been Tami Robinson,” Rudy suggested. He winked at his wife. “Monica and I dated for a while in high school. She and Tami had one hell of a rivalry going for the head cheerleader spot. When Monica won, Tami did a lot of character assassination. Monica spent days afterward trying to think up ways to kill her.”

  Liz Conrad laughed. “I used to think up ways to kill the girl who stole my boyfriend in seventh grade. Monica—was she the tall brunette I met at the memorial wall?”

  “Probably. Wearing a yellow chiffon dress?” Marcie quizzed.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s her.”

  “She seemed nice. She identified all the people who had died,” Liz added.

  “What was her reaction to Tami’s death?” Zach asked.

  “Nothing as I recall. She talked more about some teacher who’d died recently.”

  “Oh, that would be Clara Sylvester,” Glory chimed in. “She broke her hip last spring and her son arranged for her to stay in a convalescent home near him in Muncie. I understand she died suddenly. She must have been over eighty.”

  “Eighty? Try a hundred and eighty. I think she was eighty when she taught government,” Rudy joked.

  Zach chuckled. “That’s true. She used to head up the youth group at the Methodist Church. Stern and always wanting to know what we evil teenagers were doing. My mother made me go to the Wednesday night meetings, hoping I’d find a girlfriend. Boy, was she ever wrong.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Glory replied with a smile. “Divine talked about how smart you were. Said she wished she had your brains for math.”

  Silence settled over the group at the mention of her sister. Glory had spoken as though Divine was in the next room. Her voice had no inflection, but then, her sister’s death had occurred a long time ago. Zach couldn’t think of anything to say. What do you say to someone whose sister killed herself?

  Zach remembered Meghan telling him Glory had informed her of Divine’s death in very blunt, unemotional terms. Maybe that’s the way she deals with it. The whole family was a little odd. Used to quote Scriptures.

  Carol cleared her throat and broke the silence.

  “Meghan, since you seem to have taken an interest in this case, let me ask you a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What’s this I hear about a stun gun being used to incapacitate Annabelle?”

  “A stun gun!” Glory exclaimed. She turned a wide, shocked gaze onto Carol.

  “No kidding? Did you know about this, Marcie?” her husband asked with a concerned expression.

  “First I’ve heard.”

  Stan shifted in his chair. “I don’t like it. Maybe we shouldn’t stay here tonight. Go find another hotel.”

  “I—I don’t think anything like that has been found,” Meghan stammered.

  “Why would you think that?” Zach demanded. Damn, had they been that careless?

  “Because Jennifer Hutchins passed by your table in the bar and heard you talking about it.”

  “I heard about it, too,” Liz added. “In the ladies’ room. Two women were talking.”

  Carol raised her eyebrows. “How about it? Is there a stun gun?”

  “I really don’t know. Zach and I were just tossing out a theory, that’s all.”

  “Hell of a theory,” Rudy said with a frown.

  Carol waved a hand. “I have a stun gun in the car. I suppose the cops are going to root through our luggage and strip search us now.” She stood and straightened her skirt. “I think I’ll go up to bed before Ray Armstrong can molest me. Goodnight, everybody.”

  Her date also rose, and the couple walked away.

  Rudy looked at his watch. “I suppose we should be thinking along those same lines. It’s late, and we have an hour’s drive ahead of us.”

  “You’re not staying in the hotel?” Zach had assumed everyone was at the hotel.

  “No, we live outside Indianapolis on Geist Reservoir. You ready, Liz?”

  Glory yawned as couple number two left. “Goodness, how rude of me.” She rose, leaned over and picked up her purse, hugging it to her body. “I guess I should try to sleep. Maybe Tom’s quit snoring. See you tomorrow.”

  She walked toward the elevators, her steps slow as if too tired to go much further.

  “I’m about ready to leave, too,” Marcie told her husband.

  Stan rose, shook hands with Zach, and placing his arm around Marcie’s waist, escorted her to the elevators, leaving him alone with Meghan.

  “Boy, do you know how to clear a room or what?”

  “We’d taken it about as far as we could anyway,” she replied. “Still it was interesting. What did you find out from the guys in the bar?”

  “Not much. They were all irritated with Dave for pushing investments. He even used my name as a potential client.”

  “You’re kidding. What chutzpah.”

  “Another guy said his wife referred to Tami and Eddie as Satan and Beelzebub, and called Dave and Suzanne their evil minions.”

  Meghan laughed, uncrossing and then re-crossing her legs, giving Zach a tantalizing view of a smooth thigh. He shifted his gaze and took a deep breath.

  “A couple of them saw Dan run up the terrace steps, but that’s about it. Did you have any better luck?”

  “Not really. Everyone was busy and didn’t pay a lot of attention to who was where. Betty thought she saw someone walking down the path toward the parking lot.” She paused, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Would someone who’d just killed a person walk or run from the scene of the crime?”

  “You tell me. You’re the mystery writer.” His gaze strayed back to her legs where the dress had ridden up, once again revealing her thigh, making it hard for him to keep his mind
on the conversation.

  “True, but if I’d just killed someone, I’d run like a rabbit. And if I were a psychopath, I wouldn’t care who saw me. I’d feel invincible.”

  “Walking would be the smart thing to do,” he suggested in a distracted tone unable to keep his eyes off her creamy skin.

  “Not necessarily smart, just patient. I’ve got to quit playing amateur detective and get into this guy’s mind.”

  “You can do that?”

  She shrugged and smiled. “It’s all part of writing convincing characters. Actors do it all the time.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Betty also said she saw Dan near the koi pond with a cell phone in his hand.”

  “A cell phone or a stun gun?” Much to Zach’s disappointment, Meghan uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, elbows on her knees and chin cupped in her hands.

  “I wondered, too. Alicia was miffed at Suzanne for flirting with her date, but that’s par for the course.”

  “It sounds as if we’ve got a great big bunch of nothing. Most people saw something, but can’t remember what. And those that remember who have no idea of when.”

  “I did pick up some information. Eileen confirmed the police contacted her about both Tami and Eddie’s deaths, but that neither of them had accepted the invitation yet. She seems to think Dave and Suzanne had accepted fairly soon after the invitations had been mailed. She dealt with much of the communications, but said Monica was in charge of compiling a data base for future reunions.”

  “Monica of the rival cheerleader fame?”

  “The same. Eileen also told me Dan, Tom, Glory, and others tracked down addresses of lost classmates, and verified others.”

  “Which means a whole lot of people had access to the information, including the person who stuck the labels on the envelopes.” Zach ran a hand over his face, suddenly tired. “Are we getting anywhere with this?”

  She sighed and sat back. “I have no idea. It’s much easier in a novel.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  She sighed and nodded. “Starving. Think the kitchen’s still open?”

  He grabbed her hand, hauling her to her feet. She used his shoulders to steady herself. Zach took advantage of the opportunity to drop a light kiss on her lips. “If it’s not, there must be leftovers from the reunion banquet. Maybe we can raid the refrigerator.”

  Eating might not be sexy, but it was the best he could do.

  ****

  Meghan wandered back into the lounge while Zach headed for the kitchen. The room had cleared out, so she chose a table near the bar. Eileen and her group were gone, as were the men Zach had questioned. She nodded to a few classmates enjoying a nightcap. A couple sat at the bar where Suzanne had been, and a man sipped a beer a few stools down. She didn’t recognize any of them, and assumed they were not connected to the reunion.

  “Hey, is it true someone was murdered in the garden tonight?” the lone man asked in a loud voice. The couple ceased their conversation and stared.

  The bartender, wiping down the bar, answered, “I haven’t heard anything about a murder, but some woman got drunk, fell into a fish pond, and drowned.”

  “Good Lord, how bizarre,” the woman remarked.

  “I’ve been a bartender for ten years and you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. Why, once there was this guy…”

  Meghan tuned out the story. So, that was the hotel’s official stance on the events of the evening. She supposed it made sense.

  Hotels do not like the word ‘murder’ bandied about in reference to their establishments. Bad for business.

  Zach returned with two Styrofoam plates filled with sandwiches and potato salad.

  “This looks delicious,” she said as he set one in front of her. From his pockets, he produced two cans of cold soda. “And complete with good service, too.”

  Zach laughed. “My pleasure, ma’am. Please remember I work for tips. Hope roast beef is all right with you.”

  “It’s fine. How did you manage this?”

  “There were a couple of line cooks cleaning up. I slipped them each a twenty, and they spent five minutes dishing up the grub.”

  More generosity to a couple of tired people who put in a long night over a hot stove. And I thought nice guys were a myth.

  Hungrier than she thought, Meghan took a bite of medium-rare roast beef sandwich. A sharp pain zipped along her jaw to her salivary glands. She chewed the tingle away, licking a dollop of horseradish sauce from her finger. She swallowed, and then told Zach about the conversation at the bar.

  “That makes sense,” he affirmed, echoing her thoughts. “Hotels and restaurants are real touchy about murder.”

  “I can’t believe the news about the stun gun got out. Do you think Ray will be mad at us?”

  “Could be, but I can’t see how he would have kept the news quiet much longer. Just like the hotel’s story will be blown away by the news reports tomorrow.” He took a bite of his sandwich, forked potato salad into his mouth, and ate before continuing. “Did we get anything of interest from the conversation in the lobby?”

  “I had no idea Monica Evans hated Tami so much.”

  “Somehow, I think Monica’s moved on. Besides, why would she want to kill Eddie Mancuso or Suzanne?” he asked.

  “Good point, but maybe she held a grudge against the women. Where Tami went, Suzanne followed. Monica was like the invisible cheerleader tonight. Nobody recalls seeing her after dinner.”

  Zach popped the top on his soda can, took a long swallow, and then shrugged.

  “If her husband was sick, she may have left. If I hadn’t met you, I’d have left early.” He wiped a morsel of sauce from the corner of her mouth, and popped it onto the tip of his tongue.

  Her heart rate accelerated. Wonder what else that tongue can do.

  “Thank you.” Not to be outdone, Meghan set the sandwich on the plate, and licked, then sucked imagined condiments from her fingers, her gaze never leaving his. “I find it interesting Tom was running all over looking for Glory—and they were both in the garden.”

  Zach ceased staring at her fingers, heaved a deep sigh and took another bite of his sandwich. “But once again, we have no time frame. Do you remember seeing either of them while we were talking?”

  “No, and we weren’t talking much.” She chuckled, opened her soda, and sipped. Under the table she crossed her legs, allowing her foot to slide a couple of inches up his leg. “At least not all the time. I don’t remember seeing either Tom or Glory outside of the ballroom. Although I do remember Tom stumbling like he’d had one too many in the bar.”

  Zach made a noise deep in his throat before saying, “And Glory ran all over the place tonight. I suppose if her husband hadn’t seen her in an hour, he’d have gone looking.”

  She inched her foot closer to his knee. “You know, if I had to name a suspect right now, it’d be Dan Masterson. He was pissed at Suzanne, took a walk in the garden to cool down, mistook Annabelle for her in the dark, and accidentally killed her.”

  “And the stun gun?” Zach leaned forward, his fingers stroking her hand.

  The light caress made her stomach flutter. “I don’t know. Maybe he habitually carries one, or just wanted to scare the crap out of her—zap, and then laugh—only got carried away.”

  “There could be something in what you say. I was the President of the Math Club my senior year and a representative to the student council. Dan didn’t like anyone contradicting or disagreeing with him. As senior class president, he chaired most council meetings. He was a real stickler for following parliamentary procedure and Roberts’ Rules of Order.”

  “We know he’s a tight-ass, but did he ever get angry?” Meghan asked. Without removing her hand from Zach’s touch, she finished her sandwich and pushed the empty plate away. Never had she eaten under such sexy circumstances.

  “Not exactly angry, but he tended to lecture when the rules weren’t followed. I remember one kid telling him this wasn’
t the halls of Congress and to lighten up. Dan didn’t like it.”

  “Repressed anger,” Meghan mused. “The worst kind.”

  “This is all speculation, of course.” His fingertip drew little circles on the back of her hand.

  She drew in a sharp breath as a vibration zipped up her arm. Meghan’s foot rose higher on Zach’s leg, and her reply sounded breathy. “Of course. There’s…there’s absolutely no proof to any of this.”

  Zach leaned forward with a wicked smile.

  The sexual by-play ended when the sheriff walked through the door, slapped his hat on the table and called for a cup of coffee. Meghan and Zach removed hands and feet from sensitive areas of each other’s bodies. The bartender poured one, brought it to him, and carted off their plates as he left.

  Ray sighed heavily and sank into the chair. “Hell of a night.” He doctored his coffee with cream and sugar, blew on the steaming liquid, cautiously took a sip, and then fastened his gaze on the two of them. “I hear the news is out about the stun gun.”

  Warmth flooded Meghan’s face. Zach raised one shoulder and turned his hands palms up.

  “Sorry, Ray, but someone must have overheard Meghan and me talking. The bar was crowded and noisy.”

  “I guess our voices rose to compensate. Did we screw things up for you?” she inquired.

  “Well, I didn’t want that information revealed to the public, but I should have told you not to discuss it. What did you find out from the people you talked to?”

  Meghan and Zach told him of their discussions in the bar and in the lobby.

  “Sheriff, I’m not sure you’re ever going to find the killer,” Zach added with a shake of his head.

  Meghan took a sip from the soda can. “I find that Tami and Eddie being killed before accepting the invitation interesting but have no idea where to run with it. If I were writing this, they’d accept, and all the murders would occur here.”

  “But this isn’t a mystery novel. It’s real. I’ve already contacted the police in California and Texas. They’ll fax or e-mail me the files overnight. The killer may have slipped up and left evidence. God knows, there’s not much to go on here.”