Oscar’s mouth twitched into a fleeting smile. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant. But there’s nothing. I’m not afraid of anybody. Honest.’
Luke took a deep breath and steeled himself. ‘The same thing applies if you’re protecting somebody. The truth is going to come out, one way or another, whether you tell me what you know or not. And if it turns out you’ve withheld vital information, it’s possible you could be charged as an accessory after the fact. You do understand that?’
Oscar turned even paler, beyond white to gray. But he only shook his head.
Luke fumed in silence. He’d shot his whole arsenal, and this fellow who looked like a pushover had not yielded an inch. What on earth could be going on? Could he have developed a crush on Olivia and be protecting her? She was a looker, no doubt about that, and nearer Oscar’s age than Emily was. And though he hadn’t fully sussed it out yet, it looked like Olivia could have a motive for murder.
Well, Oscar wasn’t going anywhere, and it was clear Luke wasn’t getting anywhere with him tonight. Might as well let him stew for a while. Nobody as freaked out as he was could stay silent forever.
Luke sent Oscar to bed but stayed on in the dining room. He couldn’t face Emily right now, not after that scene he’d walked in on in the library, and his night’s work was not yet done. He had to get reports from Sam, Heather, and Pete, who should be back from his chauffeur service by now.
He scrubbed his face with his hands, poured himself another cup of coffee, and went into the front hall. He called up the stairs to Heather. ‘Done up there yet?’
‘All finished, boss, be right down.’
The three of them trooped into the dining room a minute later. ‘Help yourselves to coffee.’ He’d taken the cups and glasses used by the various interviewees and placed each one in a labeled evidence bag for fingerprint purposes. But he didn’t honestly expect fingerprints would turn out to be helpful in this case. Everybody’s prints would be all over everything after a party like tonight’s.
‘You first, Sam. What’s your analysis of the cause of death?’
‘Analysis?’ She snorted. ‘Funny man. Analysis needs a lab and a slab. Only guesses here.’
‘All right, your guesses, then.’
‘Right, but don’t quote me. Time of death we know. Cause of death, almost certainly some kind of poison. My money’s on cyanide, but there are other options.’
‘We talking murder, then?’
Sam shrugged. ‘Your call. No way to tell how the poison was administered. Accident, suicide, homicide – all possible at this point.’
‘Surely nobody would commit suicide like that. She was in agony.’
‘Wouldn’t think so. Might’ve thought it’d be quicker – cyanide usually is in the movies. And people do strange things. Want to punish themselves for something. Who knows.’
‘Not Cruella. Her name says it all – she was cruel to other people, not to herself.’
‘Like I said, your call.’
‘So of those other options that might have caused it – any of them ordinary household stuff? Or could be made from?’
‘Could be. Drain cleaner, ammonia, rat poison. All look different on the inside, but outside you can’t really tell.’
He turned to Pete and Heather. ‘You two find any of that stuff?’
‘Sure thing,’ Pete said. ‘All three, in fact. Drain cleaner in the bathroom, ammonia in the kitchen, rat poison in the attic.’
‘Any of them look like they’d been tampered with recently?’
‘I’d say no on the rat poison; the tin was pretty solidly stuck shut. The drain cleaner and the ammonia were partially used, but I couldn’t say how recently. Got them all bagged up for you.’
‘Good. I don’t know when we’ll be able to get all this stuff to the lab. Or the body to the morgue, for that matter. Guess we better stick her in the basement for now, where it’s cooler. Pete and Heather, can you rig up some sort of table to put her on?’
‘Sure, boss. There’s already something down there. Workbench or some such. We’ll clean it off.’
‘Right. What about the bedrooms? Find anything there?’
‘Nothing suspicious,’ Heather replied. ‘Just normal guest stuff and writer stuff. I collected all their phones and computers in case you want to go through those.’
‘Good work. I’ll get on that in the morning. Might find some connection we don’t know about. Get the key to that little front office from Emily and secure the electronics in there, please, Heather.’
She nodded and left the room.
‘I think we’re done here for tonight. Sam, you be able to get home OK?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got chains.’
‘Pete, I need you and Heather back here first thing. We’ll have to search outside the house in daylight.’
Not that he expected to find anything there. He had a feeling this case would have to be solved on psychology rather than physical evidence. And that was where Emily’s intuition had proved invaluable in the past. He was going to have to work with her if he was to have any hope of solving this case.
If only she’d agree to work with him. Permanently.
SIXTEEN
Everyone in the house except Luke slept late the next morning; when Emily got up, the loveseat was already folded up with the bedding stacked neatly on top. Where in happier times she might have seen that neatness as loving consideration, in the light of last night’s events it looked like an attempt to leave as invisible a footprint on her space as possible. Like Luke pretending he hadn’t been there at all.
Emily herself got up reluctantly and groggily. She’d had a terrible time getting to sleep the night before. The immediate shock of a murder in the house might have been slightly lessened by prior experience, and she certainly was not mourning Cruella personally; but nevertheless, the situation caused a severe strain on her nerves. Every time she’d felt herself starting to drift off, she’d been startled awake again by some sinister-sounding noise. She yawned her way through her grooming routine and finally trudged downstairs.
In the dining room she found only Marguerite. ‘The others wished to eat in their rooms,’ she told Emily. ‘Moi, I came down to keep company with les chats.’ At Emily’s look she added, ‘And with you, of course, chérie. Now that you are here.’
Emily helped herself from the sideboard, taking only coffee, a spoonful of scrambled eggs, and a half-slice of toast with Katie’s homemade blackberry jam; food didn’t seem terribly appealing.
‘We didn’t get a chance to talk last night. What do you make of all this?’
‘C’est évident, n’est-ce pas? Cruella made some threat to the fair Olivia, and the so devoted, so manly and charming Ian, he has avenged her.’
‘You seem awfully sure about that.’
‘Mais oui, how could it be otherwise? Olivia, she has not the temperament to murder; she is a martyr, that one. And Dustin – pfft! He has no more gumption than a drunken snail. He had something against her, évidemment, but to take the decisive action – non, that is beyond his power.’
‘But if it was Ian, how would he have known Cruella would drink the amaretto? Or drink out of that particular glass? Only her charades team could have known that.’
‘Mais chérie, did you not know? Veronica told me she heard Cruella boast that she would get her hands on your amaretto, one way or another. And Ian heard her say it.’
Emily sat back in her chair as if pushed by an unseen hand. Luke must have known that and chosen not to tell her. Did he plan to shut her out of the investigation completely?
And then, too: ‘Wouldn’t Ian have been afraid someone else might drink the amaretto before Cruella got to it? Me, for instance? I can’t see him being callous enough to take that chance.’
Marguerite shrugged. ‘We do not know the poison was in the bottle. More likely it was in the glass.’
‘I suppose, but even so … My money’s still on Dustin. It’s true he’s spineless, but poison is a coward’s we
apon, after all. Ian is no coward.’
Marguerite shook her head sagely. ‘He is not a coward, but he is clever. Shrewd. He would know poison would be the way to leave the least evidence behind. No bloodstains, no weapon to conceal, no marks on him at all. And he must not be caught, because that would leave his beloved Olivia unprotected. Écoute-moi, chérie. It is Ian. I am certain.’
She took a long drink of her café au lait. ‘Not that I blame him, tu comprends. That woman was a menace. We are all much better off without her. And Olivia, she is une femme pour assassiner – a woman to kill for. Non, I do not blame him at all.’
Emily knew there was no point in arguing with Marguerite once her mind was made up. But she couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself this morning, and it seemed unlikely Luke would care to hear them. ‘I don’t think it’s that simple. This whole thing feels so much like an Agatha Christie novel, and her plots are never that simple. There’s always some weird wrinkle – either the method isn’t what it appears to be, or the people aren’t who they appear to be, or what looks like murder isn’t really murder at all. This feels like that.’
She pondered as she chewed her toast. ‘I know – what about this? Cruella obviously had it in for Ian and Olivia; I agree with you that far. What if she committed suicide in such a way as to throw suspicion on Ian in order to punish him and break them up permanently?’
Marguerite actually took a minute to consider this. ‘You know, chérie, it is possible you have something there. Cruella was that cruel and that devious. But to sacrifice her own life for the sake of her revenge – is it not more likely she would have killed, par exemple, Dustin, and then thrown the blame on Ian?’
‘Maybe she couldn’t figure out a failsafe way to do that. She might be willing to die for her revenge but not to go to prison for it. Or maybe she didn’t plan to actually die but miscalculated the dose.’
‘Mmm …’ Marguerite shrugged. ‘Peut-être. But I still prefer my theory.’ She turned her attention to her newspaper and calmly finished her breakfast.
Emily gave up on eating and stared absently out the window, coffee cup at her lips. Suddenly a man’s blond head popped up over the shrubbery and she started, sloshing coffee into her saucer. Then she recognized Pete and relaxed. A protector, not a threat. They must be searching the outside of the house.
While Pete and Heather searched the perimeter of the house, Luke set to work on the guests’ phones and laptops, using his own phone to create a WiFi hotspot, since Emily was still living in the Stone Age with no internet. He started with Dustin, who’d left both phone and laptop turned on and unprotected by passwords.
First Luke searched for any mention of poison or cyanide in Dustin’s browsing history, but found nothing. When he could get into the office, he’d have to look at his credit card records. And, for that matter, it might be worth checking out his history as Billy Williams as well. If the connection with Cruella went back that far, there could be more to their story than Dustin was telling him.
Next he searched for any mention of Cruella and found a series of emails and phone messages that confirmed what Dustin had admitted about the blackmail. She’d also been trolling his Facebook author page using a variety of false identities – at least, they all sounded like Cruella. He’d check her laptop, too, to make sure.
He’d been wondering all along how Cruella had found out that Dustin and the others would be at Windy Corner this week. Emily didn’t exactly advertise her guest list. But when he looked at Dustin’s author page, that question was answered. He’d posted a few days before his arrival, Heading to the brand-new, super posh Windy Corner Writers’ Retreat Center in Stony Beach for some much-needed R&R. Be good little boys and girls while I’m gone. He’d even listed the names of the other people who would be here. That explained how Cruella knew about Alex Gordon. Maybe she’d even bribed him not to come.
Luke shook his head. It never ceased to amaze him how stupid people could be with social media. Could Dustin seriously not have realized that all those trolls were Cruella, and that she might see the post and decide to follow him? Well, that was one mystery explained, anyhow. And it also brought up the possibility that Dustin had in fact suspected all along that Cruella might follow him – he might even have deliberately lured her here in order to kill her. He could have had the poison with him, after all.
Ian’s and Olivia’s devices were password-protected, so Luke had to ask their permission to search them. Both agreed with fairly good grace, no doubt realizing how bad it would look to refuse. In both their cases, Luke could find traces of harassment that had been dealt with promptly – email addresses hacked and changed, and (in Olivia’s case; Ian had no Facebook page) trolling identities on Facebook recognized and blocked. They’d both managed to keep their phone numbers private, apparently, as he could find no trace of voice or text messages that might have been from Cruella.
Luke couldn’t see the content of any of the erased email or Facebook messages, so he still didn’t know exactly what Cruella’s persecution of Olivia was based on. But it wasn’t difficult to guess. She’d probably blamed the breakup of her marriage to Ian on his relationship with Olivia. Whether they’d actually been having an affair at that time or not was pretty much irrelevant; it was Cruella’s perception of the situation that mattered.
Luke sat back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck. How would a woman like Olivia respond to persecution like that? Would it be enough to break her, make her want to fight back? Somehow he didn’t think so. She seemed more like the type who might commit suicide to escape the bullying than the type who would resort to murder.
But what about Ian? He obviously loved Olivia and was strongly protective of her. Luke could imagine him murdering Cruella to save Olivia, though he might not go that far on his own account.
Luke searched for any online evidence that Ian might have suspected Cruella would follow him to Windy Corner, but found nothing. Ian didn’t even have a Facebook author page or an author website or blog. Probably got tired of fans asking him when his next book was coming out.
Olivia had an active online presence – as a prolific author with a major publisher, she’d be required to – but her posts were discreet and impersonal, focused on her characters and the world of her books along with publishing and speaking news. She certainly hadn’t mentioned Windy Corner.
As a formality, Luke did a quick search for ‘Cruella’ on Marguerite’s and Oscar’s computers but came up blank. Oscar appeared to have few friends and little social life. All his files were related to his work at Reed or his thesis, and he had no Facebook page. In his personal email account and on his phone, Luke saw message after message from ‘mom1026’, every single one of them answered.
Luke smirked. Oscar was a mama’s boy, all right. That alone might account for his nervousness – he’d never left the nest and learned to fly on his own. He was probably in his room crying for his mommy right now. Maybe Luke should return Oscar’s phone so he could call her – he might calm down after that.
A cursory glance at Marguerite’s messages revealed nothing pertinent to the case, but it did hint strongly at an impressively active love life. Luke got out of there fast before he could yield to the temptation to read what didn’t concern him.
He saved Cruella’s devices for last. Here he found himself blocked from square one – she’d logged out of her user account, and none of the obvious password options he tried worked. He’d have to get this laptop and phone to the tech people in Tillamook to see if they could crack them. And that would have to wait for a thaw.
After breakfast, Emily felt her duty as a hostess nagging at her. Her house was full of guests whom she hadn’t seen since a traumatic series of events the night before. She felt the need to check on them, though what she could possibly do to help any of them, she had no idea.
She knocked on Dustin’s door – on the principle of ‘eat the liver first’ – but got no answer. Then she discerned the sound of snoring. He
must still be sleeping off his overindulgence of the night before. Upstairs, she crossed the hall to Oscar’s door and knocked. He opened it at once, as if he’d been expecting someone, but then his eyes darted past her to the stairs.
‘Oh, hi, Emily. I was hoping the sheriff would be returning my phone and computer. Do you have any idea how long he’ll be? I can’t get anything done without my laptop.’ Reasonable as that sounded, Oscar was still so nervous that Emily wondered whether his desire to write was really what was so pressing.
‘I’m afraid I have no idea. I didn’t even know he had them.’ Again, Luke’s lack of communication with her about the case bit deep. ‘I’ll see if I can find him and ask.’ She surveyed Oscar’s uncharacteristically disheveled appearance – hair lank and unwashed, cheeks unshaven above his goatee, clothes rumpled as if he’d slept in them – and asked, ‘Are you all right? Is there anything I can do for you, get for you?’
He shook his head briskly. ‘No, no. There’s nothing you can do.’ Then he seemed to recollect himself and smiled, returning his face to normal. ‘I’m fine, really. But thank you.’
‘Let me know if you think of anything, OK?’ She wanted to lay a reassuring hand on his arm but stopped herself. It would be just her luck for Luke to come up the stairs at that moment and misinterpret the situation, as usual. Everything she did only seemed to dig her in deeper with him.
She moved on to Ian’s door and knocked. He answered looking strained and tired, with shadows under his eyes, but as carefully put together as always. He graciously thanked Emily for her concern but insisted he needed nothing from her. ‘I found a good book in your library,’ he said, holding up a first edition of Christie’s Ten Little Indians. ‘I’ll be fine. I am concerned about Olivia, though. If you wouldn’t mind looking in on her?’ A shadow crossed his handsome features. ‘She didn’t seem to want my company this morning.’
‘Of course.’ Emily gave Ian a reassuring smile and moved next door to the Montgomery room.
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