Cyanide with Christie

by Katherine Bolger Hyde

  Wanda sat motionless with her eyes closed. Was it really possible for anybody to fall asleep in the middle of a murder investigation?

  ‘Wanda?’ No response. He touched her arm. ‘Ms Wilkins?’

  She jerked and her eyelids sprang open. ‘What? What’s happening?’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you in the dining room, please.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes, now. I’ve talked to all the others who aren’t staying here in the house, and I’m hoping to get you all home before too long.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. This is a good chair, but I wouldn’t want to spend the night in it.’ She levered herself up, smoothed the back of her hair, and gave him a flirtatious smile that sat appallingly on her aging, overly made-up face. ‘At your service, Lieutenant.’

  When Luke did not respond to the smile, it vanished in an instant. He waved her ahead of him and watched her hip-swinging walk out with a puzzled frown. Luke considered himself a pretty good judge of character in general, but he couldn’t seem to peg this woman. Curt and sarcastic one minute, flirting the next, and seemingly unconcerned about the murder in their midst. Maybe this interview would clear things up.

  He eased into it by getting her full name and address and the name of the high school where she taught, in Corvallis. Then he said, ‘You’re kind of an unknown quantity compared to the other people here. Did you have any kind of connection with Cruella Crime?’

  Wanda examined her long, blood-red sparkly nails and picked a stray bit of polish off her cuticle. ‘Never met the woman before. Tried to read one of her books once. Not a bad writer, but she got the science all wrong. Couldn’t finish it.’

  ‘Science?’

  ‘It was about a poisoning case. She claimed the victim died instantly from ingesting arsenic. That doesn’t happen. It’s long and extremely messy.’

  Luke knew that from personal experience – not of being poisoned himself, but of seeing someone die that way. In fact, it was not impossible arsenic had been the cause of Cruella’s death, though it would have taken an impressive amount to finish her off that quickly.

  ‘So you’ve made a study of these things?’

  She gave him a withering look. ‘I teach chemistry. It’s my job to know how chemicals work. Whether they’re poisons, acids, explosives, or completely harmless.’

  ‘Right. So you have no time for people who get science wrong.’

  ‘No.’ She smiled her signature sardonic smile – the one she alternated with the flirty version. ‘But I don’t go so far as to murder them.’

  Luke cleared his throat. ‘Let’s go over your movements this evening, shall we?’

  ‘What’s to go over? I was with the group the entire time.’

  ‘You never went off by yourself? Not even to the restroom?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I suppose I did go to the restroom. Right after dinner. And again while we were waiting for your team to prepare the charades.’

  ‘Were you alone in the library at any time?’

  ‘Not that I know of. I holed up in that lovely chair, and I may have dropped off at some point, so I can’t be sure what the others were doing.’

  ‘And when you went to the restroom – you didn’t leave anybody alone, or find anybody alone when you came back?’

  ‘No. Those two writers – Ian and … Lydia? – were there together when I left and when I came back.’ She smirked. ‘Very much together when I came back.’

  So Luke’s instinct about that had been correct. ‘And what about when the lights went out? What did you do then?’

  ‘I stayed put, of course. There was obviously nothing I could do, and I wasn’t about to go barging around in the dark tripping over things. I might have broken a heel.’

  ‘Right.’ Might have broken a heel – never mind an ankle. Luke still couldn’t make this woman out. Without being deliberately obstructive, she was managing to give him no help at all.

  ‘I guess that’s all then, Ms Wilkins. Unless there’s anything you’d like to tell me? Anything you might have seen or heard that seemed suspicious at all?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m lamentably unobservant, Lieutenant. Except in my laboratory, of course.’

  Luke stood. ‘That’s it for tonight, then. I’ll get my deputy to drive you back to your cottage. But I will have to ask you not to leave town until I give you permission.’

  She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Or until the weather gives me permission. That doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon.’

  Luke went back to the library and sent Devon and Hilary, Veronica, and Wanda off with Pete. ‘Jamie, I don’t think there’s any way we can get you to Tillamook tonight. Emily, you’ll have to find him a couch or something.’

  Jamie colored deeply. ‘Actually, Katie said I could sleep at her place.’ Too quickly, he added, ‘On the couch, of course.’

  ‘That’s covered, then. I can wait till morning to talk to the two of you. You can go on over there if you want.’

  Jamie relaxed his vigilance over the bar shelf with obvious relief, and he and Katie left the room holding hands. Luke summoned Marguerite into the dining room.

  This was going to be a tricky interview. As a conscientious lawman, he couldn’t ignore the fact that the amaretto had been a gift to Emily from Marguerite. Theoretically, if the poison had been in the bottle, Marguerite would have had the best opportunity of anyone to put it there.

  On the other hand, Marguerite was Emily’s oldest friend – other than himself – and although she could be peculiar, her affection for Emily seemed genuine. Luke knew she’d inherit something in Emily’s will, but Emily had already been generous to her in life; if Marguerite needed money, she’d only have to ask. And he didn’t see her being too proud to do that.

  On top of all that, if he were to offend Marguerite by even seeming to suspect her, she’d be bound to carry the tale straight back to Emily. And then they’d be right where they’d been in the last case, when Katie’s position had been so precarious.

  ‘Damned if you do and damned if you don’t,’ he muttered to himself as he shut the dining room door behind Marguerite.

  He started off with a friendly smile. ‘We’ll get this over with as quick as possible, Marguerite. I’m mainly interested in anything you may have seen or heard, but for form’s sake, I have to ask – can you be one hundred percent certain the amaretto bottle was sealed when you gave it to Emily?’

  Marguerite’s well-trained eyebrows went up like the McDonald’s arches – a comparison she would have disdained. Make that the Arc de Triomphe times two. ‘Bien sûr, it was sealed. I made sure of that when I bought it, and I checked it again when I wrapped it. I would not give my friend a bottle that might have been tampered with.’

  ‘Right. That’s what I figured, but I had to ask. You understand.’ He cleared his throat. If Marguerite felt like lying, she could probably do it as convincingly as anyone he knew; but everything he’d observed about her said she loved Emily like a sister. He’d take her word on this point.

  ‘OK, then. Did you see anybody touch the bottle at any point? Besides Emily, I mean.’

  ‘Non, and I watched it like, how would you say, the hawk. That Cruella, she heard me say to Emily that she should keep it for herself, and several times I saw her go close, trying to sneak a drink. But I was there before her.’ She gave a self-satisfied smile.

  ‘That was before dinner?’

  ‘Oui, and when we passed through afterwards on the way to the parlor to sing. After that, you know, I was not in the library at all.’

  ‘Right. Now I know when we planned our second scene, Cruella said she was going to have the sherry brought in and drink some, but she didn’t mention the amaretto. Did you have any idea she was going to use that too?’

  ‘Pas du tout. I would never have allowed it had I known. And Cruella, she knew that. That is why she did it sneakily, behind my back.’

  Luke drummed his pencil on his notebook. ‘So nobody could have known for
sure she was going to drink the amaretto.’

  ‘I do not see how they could. Non.’

  ‘Right. That pretty much takes it down to poison in the glass after the tray went into the parlor. While the lights were out.’

  ‘Oui. That is, if the poison was really meant for Cruella.’

  He glanced up at her sharply. ‘You thought of that too, huh?’

  ‘Mais oui, c’est évident, n’est-ce pas? Someone could have meant the poison for Emily.’

  Surely she wouldn’t have pointed that out if she’d been the one who’d so meant it. He breathed an internal sigh of relief. ‘Any idea who might want to … harm Emily?’ He couldn’t use the words ‘kill’ or ‘murder’ and ‘Emily’ in the same breath.

  She gave an eloquent shrug. ‘Who knows? Those who benefit by her will are all her close friends, non? Moi, Katie, you yourself. None of us would harm her.’ Her pixie mouth curved into a sly smile and she leaned across the table toward him. ‘Perhaps the financial aid people at Reed are overanxious for their scholarship fund. Perhaps they sent Oscar down here to hurry it along.’

  He gave a wry grin. He couldn’t claim to like Oscar, but he wouldn’t suspect him on that basis. ‘What about personal reasons? Emily ever have any enemies you know of?’

  ‘Emily? Enemies?’ Marguerite threw her hands wide. ‘Mais, mon cher, elle est la femme la plus aimable du monde! Non, she has no enemies. Some are jealous of her good fortune, oui, but not so as to kill her. Especially since they would not benefit themselves. Now, if it were I who was threatened …’ She waved an elegant arm as if to suggest her own legions of enemies might be lurking in the walls.

  ‘All right. I’m going on the assumption Cruella was the target, for now. Back to the blackout – did you see anyone go into the parlor at that point?’

  ‘See? One could not see one’s hand before one’s face!’

  ‘That’s not quite true. There was a little light from the fireplaces and my flashlight. But what I meant was were you in any way aware of anyone going in?’

  ‘Non. I was not near the parlor door. I was up beyond the bend of the stairs.’

  ‘Right. OK, I think that’s it for now. You can go on to bed if you want.’

  ‘I may go to my room. But to sleep when there is such excitement in the house? Impossible!’

  Excitement. Trust Marguerite to see the presence of a murderer in their midst – possibly even threatening her own best friend – as excitement. He’d save his excitement for when the murderer was found.

  FIFTEEN

  After the locals were sent home, Emily and Oscar were left alone in the library. Oscar paced in front of the bay window, twisting his hands. ‘I wish he’d call me and get it over with. Why did he have to leave me for last?’

  ‘I think he wanted to talk to the obvious suspects first, and then the local people so they could leave.’

  ‘But why take Marguerite ahead of me? She’s got to be the least suspect of all. I mean, she’s your friend and everything.’

  ‘Probably just the women-and-children-first idea. Calm down, Oscar. You have nothing to worry about. Let me get you some sherry.’ She turned to the bar shelf, then remembered. ‘Oh, right, we’re not supposed to touch that stuff. Sorry. Coffee?’

  ‘Heavens, no, I’m much too wired already.’ He plopped on the window seat. ‘Wired and exhausted at the same time.’

  Emily sat beside him, concerned for his mood. Of all the guests here tonight – with the possible exception of Olivia – he seemed the most affected by the murder, which made no sense to her. ‘Oscar, please don’t be offended, but I can’t help wondering why you’re so upset. It’s not as if Cruella were a friend of yours.’ She remembered his reaction back on his first day here when Luke had mentioned murder in Stony Beach. ‘Have you been – somehow involved in a murder before? Do you have bad associations?’

  Oscar sat up straight and stared at her. ‘Listen to yourself, Emily. Bad associations? How could anyone have good associations with murder?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that, it’s just—’

  ‘A woman has been killed here tonight. OK, so she was a pretty nasty woman, and the world is probably better off without her. But if she was murdered, that means someone in this house is a murderer. Doesn’t that bother you?’

  Emily sighed deeply. Of course it bothered her. How could she explain that she’d been through all this before? It had made her – not blasé, exactly, but it had certainly taken the edge off the horror of it all. Especially since this time she’d been spared the sight of the body. ‘The thing is, Oscar, it’s not as if any of the rest of us had anything to fear. Cruella – not to put too fine a point on it, but she was practically begging to be murdered. Whoever killed her would have no reason to kill anyone else. Unless someone else could implicate the killer, which doesn’t appear to be the case.’

  She stared at Oscar, seized by a new thought. ‘Oscar, did you see something? Is that what’s bothering you? Do you have some idea who killed her?’

  ‘Me? Of course not. I would have said.’ He spoke quickly, nervously, not meeting her eyes.

  ‘If you do know anything, you’ve got to tell Luke right away. You realize that’s your only protection, don’t you? Once Luke knows, the killer will have no reason to go after you.’

  ‘I know that. Of course I do. I read mysteries too, you know.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘There’s always some idiot who tries to blackmail the murderer, isn’t there? How do they not get that once a person has killed, he’s even more likely to kill again?’ He dropped his eyes. ‘Or she.’

  Emily took Oscar’s hand and stroked it as she would with a child, to calm him. ‘Don’t worry, Oscar. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Luke’s here to make sure of that.’

  And right on cue, the hall door opened and Luke came in. His gaze went immediately to Oscar’s hand encased in hers, and his ocean-gray eyes turned to black. Lovely. She’d done it again.

  Luke had been too preoccupied with the investigation to think about his jealousy until that moment. But seeing Emily sitting there so calmly, holding Lansing’s hand, brought it back full-force and then some. Her words said one thing, and her actions said another. In his world, it was actions that counted.

  But he was damned if he was going to let her see how much her actions hurt him. He kept his voice plumb-even as he said, ‘I’d like to talk to you now, Oscar.’

  The man visibly blanched at these words, though he had to be expecting them. What was up with this guy? He was skittish as a thoroughbred, though Luke couldn’t see any reason he needed to be. Could be his basic personality, but Luke made a mental note to do a more thorough check on his background.

  In the dining room, he waved Lansing to a chair. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No thanks. I wouldn’t turn down a brandy, though.’ Oscar glanced toward the decanter on the sideboard.

  Luke examined him narrowly, noting the tremor of his hands as well as his pallor, and decided a little brandy might do him good. He poured two fingers’ worth into a snifter and handed it to him.

  Oscar took a long sip, then cradled the snifter in both hands, swirling the brandy and watching its legs drip down the inside of the glass. ‘Thanks. That hits the spot.’

  Luke did battle with the beast in him that wanted to attack this man who seemed out to steal his woman. He was on the job now, and he had to be objective. In the end he overcompensated a little and took on a fatherly tone.

  ‘Now, Oscar, I want you to know I’ve got no reason to hold you under suspicion at this point. So you can relax, OK? I need your mind open so you can remember anything that might help me out.’

  Oscar nodded. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘First of all, to be absolutely clear: did you ever have any kind of contact or connection with Cruella before she came here?’

  ‘No. I’d heard of her, but frankly her books are the kind of thing I wouldn’t read if I were alone on a desert island with them.’

  ‘Understandable. So a
part from her general unpleasantness, you had no personal animosity toward her?’

  ‘No. I was annoyed with her because she was causing trouble for Emily, but that’s all.’

  Again, Luke fought down the beast. It was his business to protect Emily, damn it, not this pipsqueak’s. He won the internal battle and plowed on.

  ‘So let’s look back on your movements today. Were you away from the group at any time?’

  ‘Not for long. I went up to my room at one point – I think it was while we were waiting for the second charade. I had to take some medication. But I was only gone for a minute or two.’

  ‘You didn’t go to the restroom at any time?’

  ‘Yes, on the same trip. I used the toilet upstairs since I was already there. The downstairs one seemed to be in pretty high demand.’

  ‘Run into anyone else on your way?’

  ‘I saw Dustin. I think he’d just come down from the third floor. He went down the main stairs ahead of me.’

  ‘Right, we know about that. OK. Where were you when the lights went out?’

  ‘Back in the library.’

  ‘Go anywhere while it was dark?’

  ‘No. I stayed put. I … I’m not very good in the dark.’

  Luke hid a smirk. ‘To your knowledge, was anybody alone in the library at any time?’

  Oscar sipped his brandy, his hands shaking harder now. ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Did you see anybody go near the bar?’

  His eyes widened like a startled animal’s. ‘No. Never.’

  Luke frowned. Oscar was lying, obviously, and he wasn’t used to it. But why? Who among this lot would he be concerned to protect?

  Only Emily. But Emily was out of the question.

  Maybe it wasn’t protection but fear of reprisal. ‘Listen to me very carefully, Oscar. If you saw anything suspicious, you have to tell me. For your own sake as much as for the truth. Do you understand that?’

  Oscar nodded, not meeting Luke’s eyes.

  ‘If you’re afraid of somebody, you’ve got to understand the safest thing you can possibly do is to tell me everything you know. I’m staying right here, and I will protect you. I’ll sleep across your doorway if need be.’