He shook his head. “You will have to get yourself together. Denial over the death of a loved one can lead to long-term depression and social alienation.”
I grumbled under my breath, “I’ll tell you what causes depression and social alienation—not being believed. No one believed Beatrice, and no one believes me.”
He resumed his pacing. “I’ve seen it enough times in my career—”
“What have you seen?” I interrupted. “You said you hadn’t done many medical examinations.”
“Regardless of how many medical examinations I’ve done, I think I know a little more about it than you.”
“Do you think an independent autopsy, conducted by a medical examiner in a large metropolitan city, would back up your results?”
He stopped pacing to glare at me. That was the first genuine facial expression I saw on him. “What are you suggesting?”
I stood up and squared my shoulders. “You’re right about one thing, Dr. Brock. I am a relative of Beatrice Garrett, and I have some grave misgivings, not only about the cause of her death but about the autopsy you performed. If I don’t start getting some answers, I’m going to insist on an independent review to check the thoroughness of your methods.”
He sank into his chair, stunned. “What would you like to know?”
I sat down again with a shaky sigh. At last, we were getting somewhere. “Can you think of anything, besides a cardiac arrest, that would cause a coronary artery to blow out like that?”
He stared down at his hands knit on the desk. “No, I can’t. That’s why I put it down to cardiac arrest.”
“You didn’t look for the blockage. Did you do a complete blood chemistry analysis?”
He raised his eyes to my face. “Why do you ask about that?”
“Well, did you?”
He dropped his eyes. “No, I didn’t.”
I leaned back in my chair. “And it’s too late to do one now. The body will be too old, and Beatrice’s remains will be too far gone. I guess we’ll never know.”
“Never know what?”
“If something caused her heart to rupture. If you had done a proper autopsy when you had the chance, we would know if she had any foreign chemical in her body, or if some process in her body wasn’t working the way it should. We would know whether she died of natural causes or not. As it is, we don’t know. We might never know.”
He glanced up at me one more time, but I had nothing more to say. I got up and walked out of the office. Let him stew in the sheer incompetence of his actions and how that affected me and Beatrice’s memory.
Back in my car, I sat in stunned silence for a long time. I stared straight ahead and mulled everything that happened so far. Beatrice was scared, and she died under mysterious circumstances. I could be pretty certain her death was no run-of-the-mill cardiac arrest, and now that idiot doctor spoiled all our chances of learning the real cause of her death.
Someone was after Beatrice. Who could that be? Camille wanted to buy the inn. Glenda hated Beatrice and worried Beatrice would take back the greenhouse where Glenda ran her business. Now someone was threatening me and even trying to kill me by putting a poisonous snake in my shower. Nathaniel and even Levi acted hostile and distant when I first showed up. Maybe they had a motive, too.
I shook my head. What was I thinking? Beatrice couldn’t have been murdered—not really. Could she? That sort of thing happened only on cop shows and thrillers. Anyway, I didn’t have the training to solve the case even if she was murdered. She was just as dead, either way.
I fired up the old Ford and hit the dusty trail, but I couldn’t stop my mind spinning all the way back to the inn. I parked out front and thought long and hard one more time.
What if she was murdered? What if someone poisoned her to make her heart blow up? If that was true, I was living in a den of vipers. I couldn’t trust anybody until I found out who did it.
One thing I knew for sure. If she was murdered, I had to find out. I couldn’t keep living in this town and running this inn with this hanging over my head. I would keep searching until I found out the truth.
With that resolution in mind, I climbed out of the car and slammed the door. I faced the front steps and barged into the inn. This was one battle I wasn’t going to lose. Whoever put those notes by my bed and the snake in my shower chose the wrong girl to mess around with. I vowed to track the killer—or would-be killer—and bring them to justice.
The minute I got inside and slipped behind the front desk, a text came up on my phone from Eliza. The invitations are a big sensation. The party is the talk of the town. I hope you’re planning on a lot of guests showing up.
My heart flipped. A lot of guests? I forgot all about the party, and I still had so much to do before the big night. I shoved the murder investigation out of my mind, sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk, took pen and paper, and started planning the food.
I would have to talk to Camille about the refreshments, and I wasn’t looking forward to that. She would resist all the way. She might even try to sabotage the party by botching the food or the service during the party. How could I give her the motivation to put her best foot forward?
All the time I worked on planning the party, a dangerous thought niggled the back of my mind. I was investigating a murder. I said those words for the first time, even if I kept them in the secret silence of my own mind. Murder. Beatrice was murdered.
I would have to keep this quiet for now. No one wanted to admit Beatrice’s death was anything but natural. I didn’t want to admit it, either, but I needed proof—rock solid proof no one could deny. I needed proof that could go all the way to the top of the legal system to get Beatrice’s death certificate changed.
What if Camille was the killer? How could I negotiate with her about the party when I suspected her of killing Beatrice? Camille was in a unique position to dose Beatrice’s food with something deadly.
Then I remembered Camille’s secret ambition. She wanted to run her own establishment. She wanted the credit for creating fantastic food without living in someone else’s shadow. That was the ticket. I could throw her a bone so everyone would know the wonderful food and service at the party came from her. That was perfect.
I set aside my party preparations and settled back in my chair for another good long think. I had to put the puzzle pieces together to make a picture, but I didn’t have enough pieces yet. I had to find more. I had to find the missing clues to shed light on this strange situation.
Chapter 11
I went upstairs to check on the decorations for the guest areas and found Levi up another ladder in the lobby where the stairs opened out into the guest wings. He hung garlands and tinsel and holly around the light fixtures and mistletoe in the doorways.
Earnestine Walker, Eliza, and Sophia Townsend stood around the lobby and gazed up at him. “Don’t you just love Christmastime?” Earnestine was saying. “I could look at Christmas decorations all day long.”
“Me, too,” Eliza replied. “They’re so nice and round and firm and enticing. I don’t know when I’ve seen Christmas decorations as nice as these.”
Sophia leaned back. She looked right up Levi’s leg to the rounded muscle where his thigh met his hip. He flexed and strained to balance on the ladder. “This is certainly the nicest Christmas I’ve seen in a long time. Does the inn put up decorations as nice as these every year?”
Eliza jumped. “Oh! Here’s Allie. She can tell us. What do you say, Allie? Will you put on a display like this every year? I’m sure you could get a lot of visitors who would want to see this.”
I couldn’t stop my eyes migrating up the ladder. There stood Levi in his tight jeans and his skin-hugging T-shirt. His shoulders bulged, and his back flexed in a perfect triangle of chiseled muscle all the way down to his narrow hips and trim backside.
I wouldn’t mind standing around watching that all day, either. Even as I watched, he happened to glance down into my upturned face and smiled li
ke he knew exactly what I was thinking. He probably knew what all of us were saying.
Earnestine threw back her head and flashed a bright smile. “Do you think you could come to my house and hang my Christmas decorations, Levi? I need a good strong man to put up the lights around my roof.”
“Me, too?” Eliza added. “I’m afraid of heights.”
The three women giggled to each other, but I couldn’t stand around listening to any more of this. Levi was my employee. I couldn’t gawk at him every time he went up a ladder. He was supposed to be working here, and I had my own work to concentrate on.
I headed downstairs and got out my refreshment list from behind the front desk. I braced myself to go into the kitchen to talk to Camille when voices echoed down the stairs. Hector Englefink and Roger Englethorpe trotted down. They wore their usual black suits, but this time, they talked in loud voices that shook the inn.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Hector boomed. “If we take I-40, we’ll get there quicker.”
“And I keep telling you,” Roger returned, “we should take the backroads to avoid suspicion. We don’t want anyone to see us coming.”
“That will never work,” Hector countered. “No one even knows we’re here. They won’t be watching for us on the Interstate, and arriving late will attract more attention than anything else.”
“Forget it,” Roger snapped. “I’m making the decisions here, and I say we take the backroads.”
“Who says you’re making the decisions here?” Hector shot back. “Last I checked, we were supposed to be partners.”
I took that opportunity to intervene. “Can I help you gentlemen with something?”
They completely ignored me. Hector took a step toward his companion. He towered over the small man and menaced him with his size. “No one is going to tell me how to run my own operation. If I say we take the Interstate, that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Your operation!” Roger snorted. “That’s a good one. You couldn’t run any operation without me, and headquarters knows that. That’s why they sent me to nursemaid you through this. We’re taking the backroads, and I’m driving.”
Hector threw up both hands. “That’s it! That’s the last straw. Get out of here. Get out and leave me alone. I’ll run this operation my own way.”
At that moment, Levi strolled down the stairs with his entourage of female admirers in tow. He looked around the entrance hall. “Is anything wrong here?”
Before I could answer, Hector slammed both hands on his little friend’s chest and sent him staggering back. Roger’s back hit the wall, but he bounced off in an instant. He rushed Hector and knocked him back instead.
Roger followed up his counterattack by punching Hector in the ribs. Hector grunted in agony but before he could retaliate, Levi stepped forward. He stabbed both arms between the two men and pried them apart. “Gentlemen, gentlemen. I don’t think we need that kind of hostility here.”
Both men flew at him from both directions, but Levi planted his sturdy bulk between them and held them at arm’s length on both sides until they calmed down. Hector growled at his friend and Roger spat curses, but they couldn’t get to each other with Levi in the way.
After the usual bluster and threats, Hector whirled away. “Aw, whatever.”
He strode out of the inn with Roger on his heels. The little man turned back in the doorway to shake his fist at Levi. In a second, peace and quiet descended over the scene.
Earnestine muttered under her breath, “What was that all about?”
“I never saw anything like it in my life,” Sophia gasped. “They would have brawled right here in the doorway if Levi hadn’t broken them apart.”
I sank into my chair with a heavy sigh. “Thank you, Levi. You showed up just in time.”
Earnestine cast a sidelong glance toward the door. “There’s some strange people hanging around these days. I’ve been coming to this inn for years, and I’ve never seen anything like it before. Where do they come from? What sort of operation are they doing up here in the middle of nowhere?”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Sophia replied. “I’m not sorry to see them go. I hope they don’t come back.”
Levi went outside to his work. With him gone and the enticing display over, Earnestine and Sophia retreated to their rooms. Eliza hung around the front desk. She cocked her head to look at me. “Are you okay, honey? You don’t look too good.”
I passed my hand across my forehead. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind. I’ve got to go to the kitchen and talk to Camille about the food for the dinner party, and now those two guests got in a fight under my roof. It makes me wonder….”
“What does it make you wonder?”
I stole a glance up at her face. If I was going to confide in someone, it had to be her. “It makes me wonder if maybe those men are involved in this somehow. I had a talk with the medical examiner who conducted an autopsy on my aunt after she died. I’m more convinced than ever something happened to her, and now all this strange stuff is going on. What if those men are involved? What if someone else had their eye on this inn, or had some other reason to harm my aunt?”
She stared down at me with huge eyes. “You don’t think someone… you know, killed her, do you?”
“Why not?” I asked. “How else do you explain all the strange things happening around here? Someone tried to kill me, too, and some of these people want to get their hands on the inn themselves.”
Eliza shook her head. “If I was you, I would concentrate on your party. You’ve got enough to worry about getting that off the ground, and now you’ve got to go talk to Camille. You better not let her know you suspect her of killing your aunt. She could wind up putting something deadly in the party hors d’oeuvres.”
I shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Do you want me to come with you to talk to Camille?”
I got to my feet. “I think I better do this alone. Thanks anyway. Don’t leave, though, okay? As soon as I finish talking to Camille, I want you to help me start planning the decorations for the dining hall. That’s gonna be the biggest job yet.”
Eliza clapped her hands. “I can’t wait! Hurry up and talk to her so we can get started.”
She rushed off to the dining hall. That left me all alone staring down the barrel of the gun. I had nothing else to do but pick up my list and enter the lion’s den.
I took a deep breath and pushed open the swinging doors. This time, I didn’t have to go hunting Camille. I came face to face with her the minute I walked in. She cracked eggs into the big mixing machine set on the floor.
She didn’t even look up with I walked in. She couldn’t have picked a better way to make my job harder. Now I had to break the ice, and it stood six feet thick between us if it stood an inch. I cleared my throat. “Hi, Camille.”
Brilliant start, Allie. She didn’t even blink. I spread my sheet of paper out on the work table next to her and started again. “I’m giving a Christmas dinner party, Camille, and I’m bringing you the refreshments menu so you can get started planning and preparing everything. I’ve invited the whole town of Heather’s Forge, and Eliza tells me everyone is very interested, so I expect we’ll have a couple hundred guests, maybe more. I’m sure you’ll have quite a bit of extra ordering to do, so I’ve assigned additional funds to your expense account. You let me know if you need more, and I can hire in temporary workers to help if you find you’re short-handed working alone. I know a party like this is a big job.”
She stopped what she was doing to set her hand on her hip and glare at me. “You don’t really expect me to go to all that trouble, do you? What in the world would I want to do that for?”
I pulled a second sheet of paper out of my pocket and played my trump card on the table. “I’ve drawn up a sign to be positioned on the tables next to all the refreshments. It says Camille Hayes Catering, but I understand if you want to use some other business name. You can change the decoratio
n on the sign, too, if you want to. I want you to get all the credit for the catering so everyone knows what a fantastic job you do with the food. I also wrote up a press release for the paper announcing that you did all the catering independently from the inn. No one has to know I paid for the ingredients and supplies.”
She stared at me with a very different expression on her face. “Are you serious?”
“And I’m giving you a five thousand dollar bonus to show my appreciation for all your hard work.”
She blinked down at the list and the sign with her name emblazoned in fancy italic writing. When she turned back to her eggs and batter, she kept her voice low. “All right. I’ll do it.”
“Thanks so much, Camille. I knew I could count on you.”
I strolled out of the kitchen. Mission accomplished. I knew she would cave under the right kind of pressure. Now that her ego was wrapped up in knocking this party out of the park, I could put the food and all the service out of my mind. She would go above and beyond to make this party the best it could possibly be.
Chapter 12
I found Eliza in the dining hall. She held up a bright red Santa sitting in a sleigh with a team of stuffed reindeer attached to the sleigh by gold cord. “Where should I put this?”
I made a face. “I don’t think we’ll be using that—not in here, anyway. I was thinking to go for a more classical look.”
Her face fell. “Do we have to? Classical is so boring and stolid.”
I took the Santa out of her hands. “Maybe, but we’re trying to look elegant. We don’t want the inn to look like a toy store.”
Just then, my phone rang. I picked it up. “The Barrell Inn. You’re speaking with Allie. How can I help you?”
A loud boom echoed down the phone. “This is Marty Tucker. I just want to RSVP for the party.”
“Great, Marty,” I replied. “I’ll add your name to the guest list.”
“And I’m bringing ten of my friends, too,” he added. “I hope you’re providing plenty of beer.”
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