by Morgana Best
The conversation in the room immediately stopped, replaced at once with an eerie silence.
Miriam, bending over the body, called out for help. Craig and a man I hadn’t met were the first ones there. They rolled the body over.
“Is he dead?” Miriam said through her sobs.
The other man checked his pulse. “No. Quick, somebody call an ambulance!”
The nearest woman whipped out her phone and spoke into it. Everything was a blur, with people huddled over Stan. “I think he’s had a heart attack,” Craig said.
Miriam shook her head. “He’s had a terrible stomach flu the last few days, and I didn’t even know if he would make it to his party tonight. I told him to drink plenty of fluids. Are you sure he’s alive?”
Craig tried to assure her that he was, but Minnie was at once beside Stan, bending over him and sobbing. “It’s all my fault,” she wailed. “I should have told Mick to leave the second I saw him here. He’s upset Daddy, and now Daddy’s had a heart attack.”
The woman who had called the ambulance patted Minnie on the shoulder somewhat awkwardly. I expected Miriam to console her, but Miriam ignored her completely.
“That was a bit of a shock,” Carl said. “Shouldn’t someone put a blanket over him or something?”
“It’s quite warm in here, though,” I said.
Carl shrugged. “That’s what they do in movies. Anyway, I expect the ambulance will be here any second.”
Carl was right. There was only a short space of time until the paramedics arrived. Miriam asked everyone to leave the room, to give Stan privacy. I had to walk right past Stan, given he was between us and the exit, and I saw that one of my fly agaric chocolates had fallen from his hand.
There was something wrong with it. My chocolates were beautiful replicas of the fly agaric mushroom, all pretty and smooth-topped, red with white spots. This chocolate had a little round white cap on the top. It looked something like a moulded marshmallow, but I certainly hadn’t put it there.
We all gathered, huddled in the next room, waiting for news of Stan. I tapped Carl’s arm. “You remember what my fly agaric chocolates look like, don’t you?”
Carl nodded.
“Stan had one in his hand that he hadn’t eaten. It was right next to his hand on the ground. There was something stuck to the top of it.”
Carl frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I think he was poisoned. I think someone put something poisonous on the top of the fly agaric to make it look like part of the chocolate.”
Carl disagreed. “Narel, there have been a few murders lately, and that’s why you’re thinking that. Perhaps it was something on the floor and it just looked like something on top of your chocolate.”
I shook my head. “No, it was definitely on top of the chocolate. I have to get back in there and look at the other chocolates.”
“All right, as soon as they take him out, I’ll slip back in and have a look. What am I looking for, exactly?”
“Take a photo of them with your phone,” I said. “Just the fly agaric chocolates. He wasn’t eating anything else, was he?”
Carl shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
Carl was interrupted by the appearance of the paramedics wheeling out Stan. He was clearly still alive, as he was on a drip. “I’ll distract Miriam, while you slip inside and take photos of the fly agaric chocolates and anything else that looks suspicious,” I hissed to Carl.
He nodded, and slipped away. “Miriam, how is he?” I said, hurrying to catch up to her.
“They haven’t said what’s wrong with him,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “I’m going in the ambulance with him.”
I looked around for Carl, but couldn’t see him. I decided to go back into the room to fetch him, but I had only taken a few steps when he emerged. “Did you get the photos?” I asked urgently.
Carl shook his head. “There weren’t any of those chocolates left.”
“No chocolates?” I said in horror.
“No fly agaric chocolates at all,” Carl said. “And before you ask, yes, I looked in the box and I looked everywhere, but there were none.”
I rubbed my forehead. “That’s not possible. I didn’t just make enough for one person. It’s not possible that he ate every last one of them.”
“Are you saying someone took them?” Carl said. “But why would they?”
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously, because the chocolates were poisoned.”
“Poisoned with those blobs on the top you were talking about?” Carl said. “Narel, don’t you think that’s a bit of a stretch? If someone wanted to poison someone, they would simply inject poison into the chocolates.”
I thought about that for a moment. “No, Carl. If they had poisoned buttons already, all they had to do was place them on top of the mushrooms. That wouldn’t look at all suspicious—it would just look like someone arranging chocolates. Someone could hardly go up with a syringe in front of everyone and inject chocolates.”
Carl took my elbow and moved me away from some people who had moved over to us and were talking in hushed tones. When we were standing against the far wall, he continued. “That makes sense, but Narel, we don’t even know that Stan was poisoned. It was probably a heart attack. You saw how upset he was.”
“I just don’t know, Carl. All I know is that I certainly didn’t put that button cap on my chocolates, and that means that someone else did.”
“Maybe Miriam did, thinking it needed some more decorating,” Carl said. “Okay, I realise that sounds lame, but you have to admit it’s possible. There’s probably a perfectly innocent explanation for it, Narel. You can’t see murder around every corner.”
Just then, Detectives Clyde and Rieker burst into the room. “Everyone stay where you are,” Clyde said.
Chapter 4
Carl was the first to react. “You were right, Narel!”
I was too shocked to respond.
The detectives marched straight over to me. “Fancy seeing you at the scene of a crime, Miss Myers,” Detective Clyde said rather too smugly.
I glared at him. I had never taken to Detective Clyde. He was just how I imagined Hercule Poirot would look: the same stature and body shape, the same arrogance, right down to the highly polished shoes. All he needed was the waxed moustache.
“A crime?” Carl said. “So he was poisoned then?”
“Alleged crime,” Rieker added, smiling at Carl and then glaring at his partner.
Detective Clyde folded his arms over his chest. “Rieker, organise the others while I speak to these two.” When Rieker left, Clyde addressed Carl. “What made you think he was poisoned?” His tone was filled with suspicion.
“You’re here, the man has been taken away in an ambulance, and there were no knives sticking out of him, and he wasn’t shot. That only leaves poisoning.” Carl glared at the man in response.
I couldn’t wait to tell the detective what I suspected. “I already suspected that he was poisoned, and I only just finished telling Carl about it.” I looked at Carl, and he nodded. I pushed on. “Miriam Moreton, Stan Wellings’ secretary, ordered a lot of handmade chocolates for this event, and she wanted to present him with some very special ones. I handmade some fly agaric chocolates—you know, the red and white toadstools that elves and fairies sit on?” He just looked blank, so I continued. “The thing is, Miriam was supposed to present them to Mr Wellings later, but he ate a whole bunch of them. When he fell on the ground, one fell out of his hand, and it had something stuck to the top. I certainly hadn’t put anything on top of the chocolates I made, so someone else did it.”
I thought he would dismiss what I said, but he did not. “What exactly did this look like?”
“It looked a bit like a marshmallow, only more of a solid white and round like a cap.” I held my hands to demonstrate the shape and the size. “It definitely was sitting on top of the chocolate and I definitely didn’t put it there. I didn’t make any chocolates that sha
pe at all.”
“Wait here.” With that, Clyde disappeared into the room.
Carl looked white and shaken. “Narel, you were right. Someone tried to kill him, after all. I wonder how the paramedics were onto it so quickly?”
“Symptoms, I suppose.”
“But he wasn’t foaming at the mouth or anything, was he?” Carl said. “He just fell flat on his face and he was unconscious.”
“Oh well, paramedics know more than we do. They must have seen something to make them call the cops.”
Clyde hurried back to me. “Were you the last to leave the room?”
I shook my head. “I was probably about halfway in the group. I almost forgot. I sent Carl back in to take photos on his phone of the other fly agaric chocolates, but they were all gone. And Carl didn’t see that one on the ground, did you, Carl?”
Carl shook his head. “No, I looked all over the floor to see if it rolled somewhere, but that chocolate was gone and the thing on the top was gone, and there wasn’t a single fly agaric chocolate left in the box.”
Detective Clyde tapped his pen on his notepad. “Maybe someone ate them all.”
“No, that’s just it,” I said. “They were in a box, and they were special ones just for Stan Wellings. I could see him from where I was and he was the only one eating them. There were too many for him to eat all in one go. That means someone must have taken the others as well as the one on the ground.”
“Are you sure there were some left in the box?” he asked me.
I thought back. “I couldn’t see the contents of the box from where I was, but I saw him shoving them into his mouth. There was no way he could have eaten them all, because Miriam asked me to make a large quantity, I suppose so Stan had enough for a week or so. Sure he was shovelling them down his throat at a great rate of knots, but he couldn’t have eaten them all. No one could.” No one but me, I added silently.
“Wait here,” Clyde said again. This time, he hurried over to speak to Rieker, who had directed everyone to sit on seats at the other side of the room. Miriam was still clearly distressed, and was being comforted by Craig. Minnie was being comforted by two women I hadn’t met.
After a short interval, Clyde came back to me. “Could you draw this item for me?”
“Sure.”
Clyde took me into a side room and I did my best to draw the object, complete with the fly agaric chocolate. The detective seemed somewhat disappointed with my artwork. “Basically, it was a blob?” he asked me.
I shook my head, affronted. “No, it wasn’t a blob, not like frosting. It held its shape. It was like a round thing, like a dome.”
“And how far away from this object were you, Miss Myers?”
“From me to that wall over there,” I said, gesturing to the far wall. “But I saw it clearly. After all, it was on one of my chocolates and I hadn’t put it there.”
“And did you see similar objects on top of all the other special chocolates?”
I had to think about that. “Actually, I only saw him dip his hand in the box and then shovel them into his mouth,” I said. “I wouldn’t have seen anything at all, whether those blobs were there or not.”
Clyde appeared to be thinking it over. “All right then, Miss Myers. You can join the others and we will take your witness statement presently, after the forensics team arrives.”
I walked back into the main room and stood next to Carl, who in turn was standing next to a huge potted fern. “Look, it’s that nosy local reporter,” Carl said. “Graham Gibson. How did he get wind of it so quickly?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps he listens into police radio like they do on TV.”
Carl was about to respond, but didn’t have the chance, because Graham Gibson hightailed it over to us. “Narel Myers, I presume?” he said in a smug manner.
“Yes,” I said.
He looked Carl up and down. “Nice to see you again, Carl,” he said in a tone that made it very clear that he wasn’t at all pleased to see Carl.
Carl simply glared at him and did not respond.
“I haven’t been back in town long, but I’ve been doing my research,” he said. “Narel, if I may call you Narel?” Without waiting for me to answer, he continued. “Narel, you have been implicated in every recent murder in this town haven’t you?”
“She hasn’t been implicated,” Carl snapped. “It’s just that she happened to be around one or two of them. She was never a suspect.”
The man simply smirked. “And this time, a man has been taken away, poisoned, after eating chocolates you made, Narel.”
“I didn’t poison the chocolates,” I sputtered, but Graham simply smirked at me.
“Let’s look at the facts,” he said in a snarky manner. “A man is poisoned, possibly with a fatal outcome. He ate your chocolates before he keeled over. Therefore, the chocolates were poisoned. Whether you poisoned them or not is another matter, and whether you poisoned them deliberately or not is another matter still.”
I was struck speechless. Apparently so was Carl, because the two of us stood there wordlessly. Thankfully, Detective Rieker came over. “I’ll take your statement now, Carl,” he said with a big smile. I thought he winked at Carl, but I couldn’t be certain. I excused myself from the reporter and went to sit on a vacant seat in the middle of the group. I happened to look up to see the reporter was taking photos of me with his iPhone and I instinctively put up my hand to cover my face.
Graham Gibson smiled, and then walked away. Several people, I assume the forensics team, arrived and Clyde spoke to them in hushed tones before opening the door to the reception room.
This was turning out to be quite a nightmare. The police seemed to think it was poison, and that nosy reporter had also thought it was poison, but then again he might have been clutching at straws in his attempt to write a sensationalist story. Still, it was clear that the police were treating it as attempted murder, so that did suggest that Stan had ingested poison. If it hadn’t been in the wine, then it had to be in my chocolates. I knew I didn’t poison the chocolates, so someone else did. But who?
I looked around the room. It was likely I was sitting in the presence of an attempted murderer, unless of course that person had been Mick Holder, as he left after the altercation with Stan. Oh, and then there was the housekeeper, Daphne Delamare, who had left after her altercation with Stan.
I sighed and put my head in my hands. This had certainly been an eventful night, and it wasn’t over yet.
Carl presently returned, but before I had a chance to speak to him, Detective Clyde whisked me away to give my witness statement. I wondered why they didn’t ask us to give our statements down at the station, but I suppose there were so many of us, and they wanted the events fresh in our minds, given that, no doubt, one of us was the murderer.
I sat opposite Detective Clyde in a small office, and wiped my sweaty palms on my dress. I felt nervous, like I was here for a job interview. The office was clinical, all white and steel, and the furniture looked as though it had been purchased from a cheap flat pack furniture store. Then were numerous potted palms, but I couldn’t tell from where I was sitting if they were artificial or not. I guess that they were, given they looked far too green and shiny. Real plants indoors never looked quite that good. The view out the window was of the neighbouring rooftops, as far as I could tell in the cloud-covered moonlight. An owl, or some other large night bird, flew past, causing me to jump.
After I had gone through the events yet again with Clyde, he asked, “And what was your relationship with Stan Wellings?”
I shook my head. “I had never met him. The only person I met before I came here was Miriam Moreton, his personal secretary. She was the one who ordered all the chocolates for this retirement party.”
“I saw they were all specific shapes. Did Miriam Moreton decide the shapes?”
“Yes. She wanted several red Porsches to match his car, and she wanted the fly agarics. She also wanted sports bikes, but she said I could m
ake up other shapes. Those were the specific ones she requested.”
He nodded. “So red Porsches because he owned one?”
“That’s right,” I said.
He tapped his pen. “And why sports bikes?”
I shrugged. “I can’t remember. I think she said he had those, too.”
“And why fly agaric?”
“That was connected with some big deal he made, the one that made him rich,” I said. “You’d have to ask Miriam. It was some big contract he got doing a huge advertising promotion for a video game.”
“I see. And if you didn’t know anyone, Miss Myers, why were you still there?”
I didn’t know what he meant, and I said so.
“I mean, why didn’t you simply deliver the chocolates and go home? Why did you stay at the party?”
“Because I had to look after the chocolate fountain,” I said. “You have to keep adding chocolate to it as people consume at. Someone has to be with the chocolate fountain. It’s not something you can just switch on and leave.” I jumped to my feet and clapped my hand over my mouth.
Clyde looked alarmed. “What is it?”
“I have to turn the machine off!” I said in horror. “If all the chocolate has hardened it will burn out the motor. I have to put it onto the low setting at once or my machine will be ruined! That’s an expensive piece of equipment!”
“Sit down, Miss Myers.”
I did as I was asked. “Please, you have to let me in there or the chocolate fountain will be ruined.”
Clyde appeared to be thinking over my request. “All right then, I’ll go with you, but you must be careful not to touch anything”
When I emerged from the office, Carl raised his eyebrows, but I simply said, “Chocolate fountain,” as I walked past him. The forensics team had already bagged most of my chocolates, but the chocolate fountain was still running. I hurried over to the settings. To my horror, the chocolate had hardened. I turned to Detective Clyde. “Are they going to take my fountain? Or just some of the chocolate? It’s just that this fountain cost me quite a bit of money and I have to work fast to fix this.”