Brent apparently thought the same thing I had. “Sick?” he asked.
“She said she wasn’t. But she also said she was in the ladies’ room when the evacuation announcement was made, which means she was in the ladies’ room for around ten minutes. But it could have been more. She and Jenn left the reception about ten minutes after midnight and came back shortly after the ambulance arrived, around ten to one.”
Brent looked up from writing in his notebook. “Were the bride and her sister carrying anything?”
“Not when they came back. When they left, it looked like they needed all four of their hands to tame the wedding gown and force it through the doorway leading out of the banquet hall.”
“What about the ex-boyfriend?”
“I didn’t notice him carrying anything. But maybe there’s a coat check? Chad could have gotten something from his coat or his car, and returned inside through the delivery entrance.”
“Did you see other people leave the reception around the time you put your hat on the table behind your donut wall?”
I tightened my grip on the blanket. “People were coming and going all the time. I didn’t know anyone at the reception besides Scott and Jenn. I’d seen Suzanne once before, very briefly, last night, I mean Friday evening, when she was coming out of the clothing shop that she and Jenn own across the alley from Deputy Donut. I didn’t notice who all had left and who was still at the reception at midnight.”
Brent’s gaze swept the main parking lot. “I don’t see anyone dressed like a bride.”
“She and Suzanne left in the ambulance. Suzanne was okay, but Jenn fainted when I told her that Roger had collapsed.”
“How long was Jenn passed out?”
“About a minute.”
“And you’re sure you’re okay?” Brent had a super-stern expression that he probably reserved for interrogating desperate criminals. Now he was using it on me.
“I’m fine.” Wondering how Scott was, I glanced toward where I’d last seen him. He was standing with other reception guests, and he looked both relaxed and alert. Misty was a little distance away from him, interviewing another man.
“Tell me right away if you start feeling ill, Em,” Brent demanded.
“Okay.”
“Can you show me how to get to the delivery entrance you mentioned without going inside?”
“Sure.” We walked toward the south end of the lodge.
“Are you warm enough?”
I tried to hide my trembling. “Yes.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie. I was warm enough. Warm enough not to freeze, anyway.
Chapter 8
Misty’s partner had already strung police tape across the delivery entrance, but he was gone, probably taping off entrances along the section of the lodge facing Little Lake.
Standing behind the police tape, I told Brent, “This door was unlocked during the early part of the evening, until ten, anyway. A security guard was posted on a chair just inside it, but after Roger’s collapse, when I noticed that the banquet hall’s back door had been left open, the security guard was gone. I was able to open the door from the inside without unlocking it.”
“I should hope so, for fire safety. Tell me about the security guard.”
Brent positioned himself underneath the light above the door and wrote in his notebook while I described the security guard, complete with briefcase and broken and retied shoelace.
“A security guard with a briefcase.” Brent said it with almost no inflection, but knowing him, he was pointing out that it might be unusual for security guards to carry briefcases while on duty.
“I saw him take a newspaper out of it. The other times I passed him, he was either reading the paper, nodding off over it, or possibly sound asleep. Shortly before ten, he told a couple of women that they shouldn’t go to their conference through this door. He told them to go through the lobby, but they didn’t, at least not right away. They were still here a few minutes later when I was coming down the hill from the staff parking lot. One of the two women pointed at me, and then both of them hurried off in the direction the security guard had told them to go. At least one of the two women was wearing a scent like potpourri—”
“Like what?”
I spelled it for him. “It’s made of dried plant material, like flower petals. It was used as a fragrance and as an air freshener in colonial days, and people still make it. What these women were wearing was extra-strong and smelled like it was composed of dried roses and lavender, some citrus, and spices like cinnamon and cloves. Other scents, too, that I couldn’t quite place and probably don’t remember.”
“Were those women among the people in the parking lot when I arrived?”
“No, and while I was looking in the corridor for the person who had left the banquet hall’s back door open, I peeked into the two meeting rooms across from the banquet hall. One room was empty and clean, but a banner with the name of their conference on it was in the other one. No one was in that room, but the smell of potpourri was almost overwhelming.”
“Did the area around your donut wall, where you saw the white powder, smell like potpourri?”
“I didn’t notice it. There were flowers on the donut wall, but none of them had noticeable fragrances. Also, the banquet hall is much larger than the room that smelled of potpourri. The banquet hall’s front double doors had been open from at least ten, and its back door must have been open for a few minutes, so the banquet hall could have aired out. Both of the doors to the meeting room were closed, though. The potpourri aroma could have lingered in that room after someone wearing it left.” I told him about the two Happy Hopers and the wording on their totes.
“ ‘Goal Accomplishment Through Shopping’?”
“Yep.”
He made one of his noncommittal comments. “Mmp. So . . . the security guard had a briefcase, and each of the two women had totes. How big were the totes?”
“Big enough to conceal a package containing a half cup or so of the mystery powder that I hope turns out to be sugar.”
“That’s how much powder you saw?”
“I didn’t measure it—”
“I hope not!”
“But I’m guessing it was about a half cup.”
He said dryly, “I suspect that your guesses about volumes of powders resembling baking ingredients are probably closer than most people’s. Did you see anyone else besides the security guard and those two women in the service corridor or near this door?”
“No, but when Tom and I brought the donut wall around six this, I mean last evening, Saturday, people were clapping in the room that now smells of potpourri. And every time I was in the service corridor, I heard pots and pans being banged around in the kitchen. There’s only one door from the banquet hall to the service corridor, and it’s near our donut wall.” I described the banquet hall and the drapes that formed a sort of tent inside it. “Tom and I set up the donut wall and were about to go back to Deputy Donut to make the donuts when the wedding party came in for a photography session. Roger was talking—if you can call it that—to us when the banquet hall’s back door opened and then slammed shut.” Tilting my head back, I looked into Brent’s eyes. I knew they were gray, but they looked dark in the dim light. “The lodge has a strange, space-wasting layout, with three hallways paralleling each other down most of the length of the building. The meeting rooms and banquet hall all have front entrances into the outer hallways and back entrances into the middle hallway.” I pointed. “That’s the one just beyond this door. The draft that opened and slammed the banquet hall’s back door could have come from here, from the door near the lobby, from a meeting room, or from the kitchen. The two meeting rooms and the kitchen are across the service corridor from the banquet hall.”
Brent looked up toward the star-filled sky. “You’re telling me that there are many ways that someone could leave a meeting room or the kitchen and disappear into another room or hallway?”
“And from there, outside. Plus, as
Tom prophetically pointed out, anyone could hide behind those drapes hanging around the inside of the banquet hall.”
Brent returned his gaze to me. “Did anyone?”
“The three groomsmen. They raced around behind the curtains for, I think, the fun of it. Jenn’s sister was the maid of honor, but the groomsmen and the two bridesmaids were high school kids. They participated in the wedding as a fundraiser for Fallingbrook High’s soccer teams.”
Brent ran his hand through his thick light brown hair. “That’s creative.”
“One of the boys’ fathers took all five of the kids away shortly before midnight, before I set my hat on the table. Unless the kids came around the lodge and snuck in through this door, I’m almost positive that they did not leave that saucer of powder on the table behind the donut wall.”
“Did you see the vehicles that the security guard with the briefcase and the two women with the totes were driving?”
“No.” I turned and pointed up the hill. “When I was coming back from parking in the staff lot, the two women walked down the hill behind me. If they parked there, it was odd. According to Jenn, lodge and conference guests were supposed to park in the lot in front.”
“Let’s have a look at the staff lot.”
Using our phones’ lights, we walked up the stony lane. At the top of the rise, we passed the straggly line of pines.
Brent deadpanned, “I can’t see your car in all of this.”
Although the Deputy Donut car’s gleaming white-frosted donut was mounted flat on the roof, it stuck up above other cars and was about the most obvious object in the dark parking lot. I moaned, “If only I had a remote for the lights in the donut, then we’d find my cruiser.”
He laughed.
We examined every single vehicle. Brent made a note of each license plate, including the Fordor’s, and shined his light inside all of them. No one was in any of them, although the windows of a black sports car were fogged up. Whoever had been in the car had left, however. I hovered my hand above the hood. It wasn’t warm.
Brent’s phone rang. He answered it. “Okay. . . . Yes. I see.... Okay.” He disconnected, turned to me, and took a deep breath. “The lab at the hospital has confirmed your guess. That white powder was poison.”
I pulled the blanket up around my ears so I could clutch at the sides of my head. “No. . . .”
“The preliminary findings are that it was the tasteless form of arsenic known as ‘white arsenic.’ ”
“How is Roger? And Jenn and Suzanne?”
“Jenn does not appear to have ingested any arsenic, but they’ll keep her overnight for observation, and her sister is fine. She can go home. Mr. Banchen, however . . .” He rubbed the toe of a shoe against loose pebbles. “My investigation into a mysterious white powder that might have made someone sick is now an investigation into a suspicious death.”
Chapter 9
I gripped the edges of the blanket so tightly around my throat that I nearly choked myself. “The arsenic killed Roger?” Above us, the tops of pines sighed in a breeze I couldn’t feel.
Brent aimed his phone’s flashlight at the ground. “They gave him an antidote, but it was too late. His heart stopped and they couldn’t restart it. I’m sorry, Em. Do you know his bride well?”
“Not socially, but I’ve talked to her a lot in her store.” The flashlight in my hand wavered, shining at Brent’s knees until I tamed it back toward our feet. “I met Roger for the first time here, when Tom and I dropped off the donut wall. Maybe Roger was under stress, but as far as I could tell, he was rude to everyone. Friday afternoon, Jenn was in tears because her sister told her not to marry him. Jenn said that Suzanne never liked Roger, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Roger was boorish before the wedding, too. Suzanne accused Jenn of being a gold digger.”
“He was wealthy?” Our lights reflected upward, casting odd shadows on Brent’s face that could have made him appear devilish, but all I saw besides his suddenly alert expression was his kindness and concern.
Hoping the lighting didn’t make me look scary, I said, “According to Jenn, he inherited. I think she said it was from a distant relative.”
Brent didn’t say anything.
I filled the silence. “I like her. I’m sure she’s not a killer. Friday evening, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to marry Roger.”
Brent stared down at me in the darkness as if willing me to draw my own conclusions.
“Jenn could have simply refused to marry him,” I pointed out. “Going through with the wedding and then killing him at the reception makes no sense.”
“That depends on how his will was written. And if he didn’t have one, his wealth would go to his next of kin.”
“A wife, but not a fiancée?”
“Possibly.”
“Jenn’s a talented knitwear designer.” I bent slightly to peer beyond the hem of my apron to my jeans-clad shins and then quickly straightened to look into Brent’s eyes again. “Also, Tom and I buy the clothes we wear at work from her.” I couldn’t help smiling at my lack of logic. “Talent and good taste in clothes—that proves that Jenn can’t be a killer, right?”
“Right.” He knew I was joking.
I became serious. “Roger’s death could have been accidental. Maybe someone mistakenly believed they’d found sugar and decided that Tom’s and my crullers needed additional sweetening.”
Brent reminded me, “Someone covered the saucer of arsenic with your hat.”
I frowned, thinking back to that saucer and my hat. “When I discovered that someone had moved my hat, one of the bakery boxes that had been closed was open. It originally held twelve crullers, but five were missing. I suspect that your investigators are going to discover that someone purposely dipped at least one of those crullers in that powder.” Not wanting to believe that anyone could have died from eating Tom’s and my crullers or donuts, no matter how the poison had been added, I asked, “Are they sure that it was arsenic that killed Roger? Flowers can be poisonous, too. Maybe some of the purple flowers at the reception were monkshood, and Roger ate some of them.”
“Monkshood is bitter. People usually spit it out as soon as they taste it.”
“But will the investigators take the bouquets and flowers to check?”
“They’ll take everything that might hold a clue.”
“Like the leftover donuts, the boxes that I brought them in—most of them are flattened and piled on our stainless-steel cart—and my hat?”
“Yep.”
“And the donut wall, and the table it’s attached to?”
“Probably.”
“And my down-filled jacket, which is on the floor underneath the table?”
“That, too. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I don’t think Emergency Medical Services is going to come after me for this blanket before I get home. Another thing your investigators should take is the periwinkle step-on wastebasket that I decorated with ribbon and lace. All evening, I was throwing plastic gloves into it. Maybe whoever put arsenic in the saucer threw something into my wastebasket or wore a pair of my gloves. There was a box that still had fresh gloves in it on that table near my hat.”
“They’ll take the wastebasket and the box of gloves, too.”
I nodded toward the Fordor. “I suppose you’ll need to check my car for arsenic.”
“And your shop. Personally, I don’t suspect you and Tom, but . . .”
“I understand.” Checking food sources when food was suspected in a poisoning case was normal. “The sooner you clear Tom and me, the better. How do we do this?”
“You’ll give me your car keys, and I’ll have your car taken on a flatbed to Forensics. We’ll seal your shop doors. Investigators will search your shop but not until after the lodge is thoroughly checked.”
“Okay.” I pulled the Fordor’s keys out of my pocket and gave them to him. “Want the shop keys, too?”
“I’ll call you when we need them. You know we could find arsenic in
your shop, no matter what. It can be in poisons used to control vermin, and it’s often found in old buildings.”
I shuddered. “Ugh. I hope our renovations were thorough enough to remove anything like that. We’ve never used or needed rat poison since we opened Deputy Donut.”
“Good to know. I’ll have the doors sealed immediately, so no one can accuse you and Tom of going in there and destroying evidence.”
“And because I’m giving you permission to search Deputy Donut and our car for arsenic, you won’t need search warrants for them, right?”
“Right. And we’ll get Tom’s permission, too. How many outer doors does your shop have?”
“Three—the front door on Wisconsin Street and two in the back. You’ve used the one that goes into the office. And you’ve probably seen the other one. It’s at the loading dock and goes into the storeroom.”
He wrote some more and then we started down the hill. I lit the path ahead of us with my phone. The light bobbed around because I was also texting Tom about what had happened. I heard Brent tell someone in the police department to put seals on all three of Deputy Donut’s doors.
Apparently, Tom was still awake. He texted, “Tell Fyne it’s fine.”
I showed Brent the text. “There, Tom’s consented.”
Tom added, “Might be too late to stop mop cops.” The retired cops who cleaned Deputy Donut and changed the oil in the fryers each night around midnight called themselves the Jolly Cops Cleaning Crew, but Tom liked to call them cops with mops and mop cops. Seconds later, Tom sent another text. “They were almost done. They’re leaving now. Take care of yourself.”
Goodbye Cruller World Page 6