A Death on the Island

by Blythe Baker

Shanda, who had left Samuel’s side and was listening to Holly and I’s conversation, cleared her throat. “Actually, based on the fact that when I examined him, blood was no longer flowing from his neck, we know he had been dead for at least five to ten minutes. And he wasn’t exactly cool to the touch, but he wasn’t warm. If I had to guess, I’d say he’d been dead for around fifteen to twenty minutes. Though, that is a guess.”

  “Okay,” I said, lowering my voice. “We just need to determine everyone’s movements for the last twenty minutes.”

  Just then a hand landed on my shoulder. I assumed it was Mason at first, but when I turned, I was looking up into Daniel’s uncomfortably close face, dimples framing his mouth even when he wasn’t smiling.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes trying hard to be sincere.

  I slid out from under his hand. “I’m fine.”

  Daniel’s eyes glanced towards Robert Baines’ body—I made a mental note to find a sheet or something to cover him with as soon as I had a chance—and then back to me, his head shaking slowly. “I just can’t believe something like this could happen. I can’t believe someone here could have done something like this. I can’t believe he is actually gone.”

  I understood Daniel’s instinct. Everyone wanted to speak well of the dead, especially when the deceased was lying in a pool of their own blood no more than fifteen feet away. However, I knew how Daniel felt about Robert. He’d made his opinions very clear while Robert was still alive. Daniel thought Robert was a liar and a cheat. On more than one occasion, Daniel had filed formal complaints against Robert, claiming that Robert’s poor reputation was bad for bank business. Not to mention, I had a very strong suspicion that Daniel, like most of the other guests, had been blackmailed into attending Robert’s party. So, listening to him lament Robert’s passing was a bit too much for me to handle.

  “You didn’t even like him, Daniel,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Suddenly Daniel grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the other guests, many of whom were nervously milling around the staircase, unsure what they should be doing.

  “Ouch,” I said, yanking my arm out of his grip. “What is wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” he asked, his neck turning red with anger. “What’s wrong with you? A man is dead and his murderer is in this house and you decide to announce that I harbored ill feelings towards him? Are you trying to make me look like a suspect?”

  If there was anything I’d learned from years of true crime novels and detective shows, it was that innocent people were rarely concerned about looking guilty. Daniel’s nervousness was definitely a red flag.

  “You won’t look guilty if you’re innocent,” I said.

  “Are you suggesting there is a possibility that I could be guilty? Do you truly believe me capable of something this ruthless? I know we’ve had a colorful past, but come on, Piper. Really?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Everyone is a suspect. Where were you the last twenty minutes?”

  Daniel narrowed his eyes at me. “Where were you? What gives you the right to play Sherlock Holmes? I don’t have to answer to you. I’ll wait until the police arrive.”

  With that, he snapped around and walked into the dining room.

  “That’s a great idea,” Shanda said, gesturing after Daniel. “Perhaps we should all move to the dining room. Clear the area. Maybe try and eat something.”

  “Who could eat at a time like this?” the cardiganed woman asked.

  Many of the guests expressed similar feelings about the idea, saying it felt inappropriate to still hold the dinner. However, within a few minutes everyone was sitting around the table while a visibly shaken Samuel carried out the last few dishes from the kitchen. Jimmy insisted that Samuel didn’t need to continue working, but he hiccupped, clearly trying not to cry, and said that the best thing for his nerves would be to stay busy until the police arrived.

  With everyone seated in one room, it became obvious that Mrs. Harris was missing, and I noticed each of the guests glancing at the empty chair next to me and whispering amongst themselves. If the rumors about Mrs. Harris killing her parents were as widespread as Blaire had said, then certainly Mrs. Harris was everyone’s prime suspect, and I couldn’t blame them. I had my own suspicions. However, I was also concerned about her. What if she’d gotten in the murderer’s way? What if she’d caught them in the act and they’d killed her to keep her quiet? After all, as incoherent as Mrs. Harris could be at times, she’d been the one to help me discover Martin Little’s murderous secret. She had her moments of clarity.

  “Where’s the old lady?” Holly whispered as she passed me a roll.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Mason and I looked for her earlier and couldn’t find her.”

  Holly raised her eyebrows at me, but I quickly waved to dismiss her concerns.

  “No way,” I said. “This wasn’t Mrs. Harris. It couldn’t be. She’s harmless.”

  Holly’s expression didn’t change, and suddenly I felt very protective of Mrs. Harris. “She’s an elderly woman. I had to help her up the front stairs. Do you really think she could surprise Robert Baines on the stairs, slit his throat, and push him without losing balance herself? It’s insane. It wasn’t her.”

  Holly nodded. “You might be right.”

  “Why don’t you use your journalistic instincts and figure out who the real murderer is instead of making baseless accusations,” I snapped.

  It was ridiculous, accusing an elderly woman of such a grizzly crime without a single shred of evidence. Holly focused on her plate, clearly not wanting to upset me further. It didn’t matter, though. My drive to discover the murderer grew with every accusatory glance cast at Mrs. Harris’ empty chair. The guests were looking for the easy option, the answer that would make them the least uncomfortable. If Mrs. Harris killed Robert Baines then they could rest easy. She was strange, an outcast. They wouldn’t have to worry about a wolf in sheep’s clothing living amongst them. They wouldn’t have to worry about someone capable of murdering a man in cold blood sitting at the table next to them, pretending to be just as shocked and horrified as they were.

  If I was being honest with myself, though, I knew that Mrs. Harris was still a viable suspect. I’d only found out this week that she had been sneaking out of the house without me knowing and gathering the mail, and the bed and breakfast was nowhere near as large as Robert Baines’ mansion, so I could only imagine what kind of trouble she could find in a house this large. No one knew where she was when Robert was murdered and no one had seen her since the discovery of his body. Plus, the entire reason I’d brought her with me to the party was because she’d seemed particularly disturbed the past few days. And with Mrs. Harris, there wouldn’t need to be a motive. She was delusional half the time. She could have thought Robert Baines was a ghost and lashed out at him with a knife for all I knew. If I’d learned anything from my experience with Martin Little, it was that evil was much closer to home than most people liked to believe, myself included. However, I would say none of this to Holly or anyone else. If Mrs. Harris was the murderer, I’d wait to accuse her until I had the evidence. And thankfully, at the moment, I had no such evidence.

  Until Mrs. Harris was found or revealed herself, I was going to focus on the suspects I could see. I glanced around the table, looking carefully into each face, wondering which one, if any, of the ordinary looking people around me could be capable of cold-blooded murder.

  Chapter 11

  I’d imagined the party would be awkward from the moment I’d received the invitation in the mail, however, the death of the host had made the affair unbearable. Everyone seemed to be afraid to speak, unsure what to say, yet we were also incapable of leaving, trapped by the ever-growing storm and the sheriff’s orders.

  The woman in the pink cardigan—whose name, I’d learned, was Ethel—cleared her throat. “So,” she began, glancing up and down the table, a piece of chicken speared on the end of her fork, “how was everyone a
cquainted with Mr. Baines?”

  Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats, eyes darting between their plates and those seated around them. It didn’t help that the room was cast in darkness, save for the candlesticks in the center of the table, which flickered

  After a long pause, Ethel cleared her throat again. “I can start. I was a longtime patron of the bank Robert worked for in Dallas. I moved away several years ago, and when Robert moved to this part of Texas, he sought me out.”

  I couldn’t imagine why Robert would want to keep in touch with a customer from his bank, especially when that customer was an elderly woman. I’d heard rumors about the kind of women Robert liked to keep company with, and to put it kindly, they stayed up much later in the night than I was sure Ethel liked to.

  “Your banker looked you up when he moved to the area?” the woman with the cigarette asked, one eyebrow arched high. Since sitting at the table, she’d lit a new cigarette.

  Ethel nodded. “Robert and I were rather close after he helped me out of a tight spot…financially, that is. He remembered that I had a fairly…extensive art collection, and he wanted to purchase some pieces for this house,” she said, gesturing to the walls, every inch of which were covered in paintings and tapestries. “My family has always valued art, and I inherited a large collection when my father passed away.”

  “You didn’t want to save your collection for your own children?” Jimmy asked, and then reddened. “Assuming you have children, of course. Sorry,” he mumbled.

  Ethel smiled, though I could tell it was difficult for her. “Mr. Baines seemed to appreciate the art more than my own children would. I just wanted the pieces to have a good home.”

  I wondered how much of that were true. If I went back up to the library and sifted through the folders, what would I find in Ethel’s? What financial trouble had she found herself in that Robert was able to help? Was the art merely a form of repayment or had Robert been holding her past money troubles over her head?

  “What will happen to the art now?” a man at the end of the table asked. He was so slight and quiet—the human embodiment of a church mouse—that I’d barely noticed him all night.

  Ethel’s mouth twisted to the side as if she hadn’t yet thought of that, and then she shrugged. “I’m not sure. I suppose I will take it back.”

  “That would actually be determined by Robert’s will,” Daniel said. “If he bought the artwork from you then it now belongs to him. He may have left it to someone. If not, then you may be able to buy it back from his estate.”

  Ethel’s brow furrowed. “Right. Of course, you’re right. Yes, he probably left everything to Julia.”

  Julia startled at the mention of her name. Since seeing her father’s body, she had been understandably distressed, doing little more than sitting quietly, occasionally shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Perhaps,” Julia said.

  “Perhaps?” Daniel whipped around to look at Julia. “Weren’t you his only child?”

  Julia nodded. “That doesn’t mean that he would have left me anything. My father wasn’t particularly paternal. You may have gathered that from our cool exchange earlier this evening.”

  The table slipped into another uncomfortable silence.

  “Our complicated relationship does little to ease the pain of his loss, though,” Julia added.

  “Oh, of course, dear,” Ethel said. “It’s a heartbreaking way to lose a family member.”

  “Yes,” Julia said, wiping at her eyes, which still looked conspicuously free of tears. “And Ethel, if my father did leave me the artwork, you are free to take it back. I have no need for it.”

  Ethel offered the girl a small smile.

  “Assuming she isn’t the murderer, of course,” a slurred voice said.

  The man the voice belonged to was seated next to the thin woman with the cigarette. He sported a navy-blue sports coat and a white button down without a tie, the top three buttons undone, his thick chest hair peeking through the gap in the fabric.

  “Excuse me?” Ethel said, her mouth hanging open.

  The rest of the table stared on as though enraptured by a particularly juicy episode of reality television.

  “I’m just saying what everyone is thinking. How attached were you to this artwork, Ethel? What would you have done to get it back?” he said, leaning forward, his elbows banging onto the table, the amber-colored drink in his hand spilling onto the crisp white tablecloth.

  “Who on earth are you to accuse me?” Ethel asked, her voice rising to a shout.

  “Greg,” he said, pointing at his own chest. “Greg Pelkey. I own the marina.”

  Suddenly I recognized his lanky build, the downward slope of his eyes. He was the father of Matthew, Blaire’s boyfriend.

  “This is my wife, Tillie,” he said, pointing to the blonde woman holding the cigarette.

  Tillie shook her head and rolled her eyes, but said nothing, probably conditioned to her husband’s drunken antics after years of marriage.

  “Well,” Ethel said, lifting her chin high into the air. “How dare you accuse me? You don’t know me.”

  “Precisely,” Greg said. “You aren’t from the island. None of us know you.”

  Daniel stood up. “Hold on. Is everyone not from the island immediately at the top of the suspect list? Because that is ridiculous. Notice how Robert wasn’t killed before moving to the island. It seems more likely that someone from the island had an issue with him, doesn’t it?”

  Tillie apparently decided it was time for her to throw her two cents into the mix, and she snuffed out her cigarette on the edge of her dinner plate and leaned forward, blowing a stream of smoke into the air. “Actually, those of us on the island only just met Robert Baines. Everyone else has had a previous relationship with him. It seems more likely, especially based on the violent way in which he was killed, that his killer knew him personally and had an issue with him.”

  Daniel began to argue, but Ward cut him off. “Actually, Tillie has a fair point. Most violent murders are committed by someone who knew the victim. Cutting the human neck is quite a difficult task. It would require a good amount of strength and rage to do such a thing without Robert having time to cry out and alert anyone.”

  Julia winced and made a distressed sound.

  Ward apologized, but it was drowned out by Daniel’s anger. “So now the killer has to be strong? You might as well just tell everyone you suspect me,” he said. “I’m the only man here who isn’t from the island.”

  “Women can be strong, too,” Holly said.

  Daniel turned to her, his eyes flaming. “Okay, fine. You can be on the suspect list, too.”

  “What? No, that’s not—” Holly said.

  Daniel dismissed her with a flick of his wrist. “No, it’s too late. You’re a strong woman who isn’t from the island. That makes you a prime suspect.”

  “Daniel,” I said, begging him with my eyes to take a seat.

  He looked at me, and his eyes lit up with an idea. “Since we’re taking turns throwing out theories, I’ll give it a go. What about Piper? She just killed some man a couple weeks ago, right? Perhaps the ordeal gave her the taste for blood.”

  “Daniel!” I shouted. I was disgusted by the way he’d casually brought up something that had haunted my nightmares for weeks and had likely scarred me for life, but I was also curious how he’d found out the details. The news was well contained to the island, so very few mainland papers had picked up the story.

  A few of the guests, clearly unfamiliar with my story, looked at me warily, their eyes searching me, trying to decide if I really murdered someone.

  “That was in self-defense,” Mason said, sliding over to sit in the empty chair next to me. “And these accusations don’t help anyone.”

  “I agree,” Ethel said, glancing at Greg and Tillie before giving Mason an encouraging smile.

  “You just don’t want anyone attacking your girlfriend,” Daniel spat. “I didn’t hear you spea
king up when I was being attacked.”

  Was Daniel jealous? I hated myself for thinking about it as the drama around me was unfolding. Our group was hanging onto sanity by a tenuous thread, and all I could think about was whether my ex-boyfriend wanted me back. I reminded myself that it didn’t matter. A man was dead. Besides, I’d never take Daniel back.

  “That’s because you weren’t being attacked,” Mason said, drawing me out of my thoughts and into the present. “You perceived an attack, and became defensive. No one mentioned you by name, and I certainly didn’t hear anyone bring up a traumatic experience from your past to use as ammunition against you.”

  Daniel was about to argue, but Holly slid her chair loudly away from the table and stood up. “Perhaps we ought to split up,” she said.

  Everyone looked at her, but said nothing.

  “Tensions are a little high, and maybe it would be best if we kept our groups a bit more…intimate,” she said.

  “Is that really a good idea?” Ward asked. “I mean, there is a murderer on the loose.”

  “Stay in small groups,” Holly said. “Don’t go anywhere alone.”

  “What about the bathroom?” Greg asked with a laugh. I would have sworn I could smell the booze on his breath from across the table. I made a mental note to warn Blaire about addiction being an inherited trait. If she was going to date Matthew, she should be aware of all of his genetic predispositions.

  Tillie punched her husband lightly in the shoulder, and waved away everyone’s disapproving looks.

  “I think that’s a good idea, Holly,” I said. Keeping everyone in the same room was clearly putting people on edge. Plus, it would be easier to interview everyone if they were separated. It would ensure their alibis and timelines remained untainted by the other guests’.

  “Let me guess,” Daniel said, his face curled up in a snarl. “All of the islanders in one room, the mainlanders in another?”

  I sighed and stared at him for a second, wanting him to fully understand how childish I thought he was being. “No, Daniel, because we aren’t in middle school and this isn’t gym class. There are no teams. And if there were teams, it would be innocent people vs. the murderer. However, since we do not know who the murderer is, this is the best course of action.”