“It’s not your fault,” Marie said. “Why are you talking crazy? You can’t kill yourself. There are only three of us left, and I can’t bear to lose another dear friend.”
I rose from my chair and raised my hand. “Excuse me. I have a question. Benji, you said that bag was sugar, for a joke, and now you’re saying it was TDX? Isn’t that the made-up drug from those sci-fi books you guys read, about Planet Toad-something?”
Benji took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Planet Toadonx.” He gave the glasses a quick smear with the edge of his dark brown jacket, then put them back on. “Toadanhydrotetrodotoxin, or TDX, is extracted from the venom of animals on Planet Toadonx. The Toadonians use it for rituals and vision quests, as well as for euthanizing their terminally ill.”
“And you had a bag of this drug?”
Benji nodded. “The Toadonian elders said humans couldn’t be trusted, and I fear they were right.”
I exchanged looks with Jessica, then Christopher. Both were aghast at Benji’s apparent break from reality.
Marie took Benji’s hand and gently led him to a chair. “I’m going to get you some water,” she said softly.
Dion took a seat near his friend and watched him warily. “Benji, are there any Toadonians in this room right now?”
Butch got up from the sofa, fuming. “This is ridiculous! Your friend has clearly lost his mind, and you’re all humoring him.” He went to the end of the buffet table, to the whiskey, and proceeded to pour and consume three amber shots in a row.
“Who’s next?” Butch asked as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Plenty of whiskey for everyone. Let’s get this wake started.”
Christopher raised his hand, then looked around at the shocked faces in the room and lowered it. He rejoined me at our table near the karaoke stage.
Benji said, “I’m feeling much better now, I swear. When I woke up this morning and found I wasn’t in a Toadonx hell dimension, I realized that dying was no solution. I wanted to live. I wanted to see the sunrise, the dawn of a new day.”
Christopher said under his breath, “That does explain Benji running around this morning crowing like a rooster.”
Marie took away Benji’s empty cola can and handed him a glass of water. “Even if Franco did get some of your drugs from that planet, he wouldn’t eat a whole bag of it and then fall off the side of a mountain.”
Benji sipped the water. “Actually, if he’d ingested the entire bag, he would have been violently ill. His body would have rejected the chemicals before they could take effect.”
Jessica, who’d been hovering near the food trays, asked Benji, “Was it TDX in the Rainforest Delight that made me think I was a squirrel?”
He looked at her as though he couldn’t believe she was asking such an obvious question. “It would appear so,” he said in a patronizing tone.
She caught my eye and raised her eyebrows. I nodded to let her know I was on the same page. Whatever substance was in the smoothie mix, he’d been testing it, as well as other chemicals, on himself.
Butch, who’d been pacing near the couch, stopped and pointed at Benji. “That’s it! Benji, you poisoned Franco. You slipped it to him that first night. It didn’t start to take effect until later, and…” He started pacing again, shaking his head. “Now you’re putting on this act, about being crazy, so you can plead insanity. This is so devious. This is exactly what a genius would do.”
Benji said plainly, “You’re sounding paranoid, Butch.”
Butch pointed at Benji and growled, “I’m going to get some rope and tie you up before you hurt anyone else.”
Marie walked up behind Butch and began punching his back. She was tiny compared to him, and looked like a mouse trying to dismantle a mountain, but she kept at it, raining down blows on his broad shoulders and back.
“You leave Benji alone!”
Butch turned around and tried to catch her wrists, but she was determined. He let his arms drop to his sides and allowed himself to be used as a punching bag.
When she had tired, and the punches slowed down, he said, “Marie, I accept that you may never forgive me. But when we took our marriage vows, I swore I would protect you. If one of your friends is a crazy, pill-popping madman, I need to protect you.”
Marie spat, “And who’s going to protect me from you? Other than Della, you’re the one who saw Franco last. You said he was drunk when you helped him back to his room at three in the morning, when you were doing your rounds. But was he? Was he drunk? Or was he already dead?”
Butch recoiled. “You think I killed Franco?” He looked around the room at the rest of us. “Is that what the rest of you think?”
Dion frowned and crossed his arms. “Butch, she does have a point. You had a motive to get rid of Franco. You were jealous of the emotional affair he was having with your wife. Maybe you should sit down. Maybe all of us should calm down and get our stories straight before the police show up.”
Butch said, “Get our stories straight?” He made eye contact with me. “Are you hearing this? Franco’s former business partner, the one who stands to take over the entire business now that his partner is deceased, wants us to get our stories straight. Does that seem suspicious to anyone?”
I kept my expression neutral and didn’t answer. Butch was right, though. It did seem suspicious for Dion to be talking about getting our stories straight, and he did stand to benefit from Franco’s death.
The attention of the room shifted to Dion. The rings of sweat on the armpits of his dark purple shirt seemed to be growing.
Dion pointed at Marie. “She tried to sleep with Franco! That’s why she had the honeymoon suite set up. He told me on Sunday night, in the float tank room.”
Butch said, “I knew it!”
Marie said, “Liar! Dion, stop trying to distract everyone! What’s your insurance policy on the pub like? What do you stand to gain?”
Dion said, “We only have basic insurance on the building, not on each other. We’re debt-free, because we bought it outright using the funds from the patent on that ski clasp we invented.” He shook his head. “Why am I on trial? Marie, just admit that you tried to seduce Franco on our first night here.”
She glared at him, her eyes piercing, her face tight and hard under the severe bun. “You don’t know anything.”
Dion pivoted and gave Jessica a pleading look. “You remember. You were there when Franco told me all about it in the float tank room. He was laughing about the bondage-style underwear she had on, but he did say she had a hot little body.”
Marie looked as though she might faint. “He did?”
She looked to Jessica for confirmation, as did everyone else, including me.
“Tell them,” Dion said.
Jessica, who looked as if she wanted to run out of the damp-smelling cave room, grasped the edge of the pool table to steady herself. She accidentally pulled the cloth and made the chafing dishes chatter.
“I didn’t hear anything but muffled voices,” she said. “Those tanks are made to block out sound.”
Dion narrowed his eyes and scanned the room, giving everyone a withering look. “Everyone’s got great hearing when they want it. Butch, Marie, if you think I killed Franco, say it to my face. I loved that man. He was like a brother to me.”
“I loved him, too,” Marie said. “As a friend,” she quickly added. “Maybe there were a few minutes of confusion, but only because I’ve felt so distanced from everyone else lately. I would never hurt Franco.” Her expression grew cold. “But I wouldn’t hesitate to take revenge on any person who did.”
“Me, too,” Dion said.
Benji whimpered, “Please, just make it fast.”
Dion and Marie gathered around Benji. “We know you didn’t do anything,” Marie said. “You loved Franco as much as we did.”
Benji said, “He was my best friend.”
They hugged, and their voices jumbled together while they gushed about how much they loved Franco. The
three of them broke down as though they were in a contest to see who could grieve the loudest.
Butch walked up behind Marie and tried to get in on the group hug. She whipped her head back and cracked him in the face with the back of her skull. She got him right in the nose, and hard.
He spat her brown hairs out of his mouth and went down, howling, to his knees. Blood trickled from between his fingers.
“You broke my nose,” he cried.
He struggled to get back up, but could put only one foot on the ground before he buckled forward, swearing about how much his face hurt.
Amid Butch’s howling and swearing, and the others bawling over who loved Franco more, I could barely hear myself think.
I put my fingers in my mouth and whistled to get their attention. Everyone went quiet, except for some sniffles. The six other people in the room blinked at me expectantly.
“We need to establish a timeline,” I said. “Let’s assume that whatever happened to Franco was truly an accident, maybe from him taking Benji’s alien drugs. There’s nothing to be gained from throwing mud on each other needlessly, if there was no criminal intent.”
They all stared at me. Marie spoke first. “Have you started a timeline as part of your investigation?”
Butch’s head jerked. “Your investigation? Is that why you were at the body site? Why you’ve been following me around?”
The pressure of everyone staring at me was intense.
Benji said, “Stormy, did you tell anyone else you were investigating on my behalf?”
Marie did a double take. “You’re working for Benji? I thought you were working for me.”
“I am,” I said. “Sort of.”
Marie sputtered. “Are you billing him? That’s quite the racket you’ve got. How do we know you didn’t do something to Franco just so you could get paid?”
I held up my hands. “Guys, calm down. I haven’t billed any of you, and I wasn’t going to.”
“Good, because you’re fired,” Marie said.
“Fired,” Benji said. “Fired, fired, fired.”
I raised my eyebrows. From the look of Benji’s huge pupils, he didn’t even know what planet he was on, much less why he was firing me.
Dion shot me a dirty look, then shook his head.
Even Butch seemed to have turned on me, clutching his bleeding nose and scowling at me as though I’d been the one to head-butt him.
The heat of their rage-filled glares threatened to set me on fire. I got to my feet.
A smart person knows when trying to defend herself will only make things worse. This was one of those times.
Chapter 32
“That wasn’t the best wake I’ve organized,” I said to Jessica and Christopher as we walked back to our rooms. “But on the bright side, it was the second-best.”
“You’ve only thrown two,” Jessica said.
“Exactly.”
“I missed your other one due to excessive drug use,” she joked.
Christopher paused on the stairwell to give her a questioning look.
“Cold syrup,” I explained. “She had a cold, and it probably didn’t help that she jumped off a waterfall into freezing cold chuck the day before.”
Christopher grinned. “You said chuck instead of water. I’ve missed hearing that. Chinook Jargon, right?”
“Great-grandmother on my mother’s side, but that’s just how we locals talk. Even my father says chuck, and he’s straight-up Irish.”
Jessica interjected, “The chuck that day was skookum, too. Skookumchuck.”
“Skookumchuck.” Christopher chuckled as he continued down the stairs.
We got to the hallway, and Jessica held up her hand, gesturing for us to wait there a minute. She touched her toes once, stretched twice, then started running. Like a gymnast, she did two perfect flips followed by a near-perfect third, just a little wobbly on the landing. She threw her arms in the air anyway, and we both clapped.
“I guess you’re feeling better,” Christopher called out. “You’ve gone from nearly fainting, to flipping down a hallway.”
“Movement is the body’s natural stress relief,” she answered. “But you know all about that, with your yoga practices.”
“I’m very new,” he said. “I’ve only learned enough to realize how little I know about anything.”
She smiled sweetly. “That’s life. I thought Dion was my future Mr. Right, but he’s kind of a weirdo.”
“Kind of? That whole group is nuts,” I said. “No wonder they called themselves batty.”
Christopher followed us to our door rather than go to his. “Let’s just hope Marie doesn’t poison us all at tonight’s dinner,” he joked.
Jessica wasn’t laughing.
The three of us entered the room, and once the door was closed, she said in a hushed voice, “We probably shouldn’t eat anything unless it’s from a shared serving bowl and Marie’s eating it, too.”
“Good point,” Christopher said.
Our conversation was interrupted by a rhythmic sound—Jeffrey’s paws on the glass door. He’d had enough of being cooped up in the small room and demanded access to the patio.
We opened the door between our room and Christopher’s, which distracted him for two minutes before he returned to wailing at the patio door.
We couldn’t risk letting him out and having him get lost and then eaten by the local wildlife after nightfall, so the three of us collaborated on a craft project. We used the sewing kit Jessica had packed, plus an old T-shirt I’d brought for sleeping, and created a stylish body harness and leash for Jeffrey.
We put it on him while congratulating ourselves for our excellent invention skills.
Jeffrey, however, was not impressed. He lay on his side, legs straight out and ears back. He looked as happy as one of those cats whose owners dress them up as pumpkins or turtles for Halloween.
“Why’s he acting like that?” Christopher asked. “The harness isn’t tight. It’s not even restrictive. He’s acting like he’s paralyzed.”
“There’s an antidote.” I went to the patio door and opened it.
Jeffrey raised his face and sniffed the cool air coming in. His ears twitched. Beyond the door, birds chirped happily in the warm spring weather.
With a little help, he got to his feet and made his way outside, weaving like a drunk until he hit his stride. The leash wouldn’t let him range very far, and we wouldn’t leave him out unsupervised, but the fresh air promised to help with his cabin fever.
As we cleaned up the craft supplies, I wished it could be as easy for us humans.
My phone buzzed with a message from Peggy, requesting I talk to her using the video chat on my laptop. Since Jessica and Christopher weren’t likely to be leaving the room soon, I confided in them that Peggy had asked for my help on the case.
“The police had better be paying you,” Jessica said. “I know you’re really good at bargain shopping, and you barely take my money for groceries because of all those coupons you use, but you deserve to get paid.”
“Coupons?” Christopher gave me a funny look. “Stormy, you would never—”
I pinched the back of his arm to quiet him. I would explain later. Jessica was too proud to take charity from me, so I had to fib and pretend to get bargains all the time. She paid me rent for her bedroom, but I would have let her stay for free, so I applied the rent money to other things.
“The Misty Falls Police Department will be paying,” I said. “And I wasn’t really charging the others. I only let them think I was working for them, to gain their trust.”
Christopher said, “Your deviousness runs much deeper than I ever imagined.”
Jessica punched his shoulder. “She’s clever, not devious, because she uses it for good.”
I opened my laptop, and after some fussing around to download drivers and reboot to get the soundcard working again, all three of us were on a secure video call with Officer Peggy Wiggles.
Peggy had been to our
shared hairdresser since I’d seen her last, and her gray-streaked pixie haircut was on the short side. She took in the addition of Jessica and Christopher without showing any surprise.
“How are things in Misty Falls?” I asked.
“Still running around like a house mouse with a backpack full of catnip.” She turned to bark an order at someone off-screen, then turned back to us. For someone who was technically a rookie, she seemed to have a lot of authority.
She said to Christopher, “You’re the bonehead who insisted on moving the body?”
Christopher raised his hand. “My cousin, Butch Fairchild, insisted. Is that normal?”
She told someone off-screen to bring her a coffee, large. “Yes, that’s normal. It’s normal for civilians to disturb the crime scene and make everything harder for us. It happens all the time. The paramedics show up and the old man’s tucked in bed, wearing a pair of pajamas with no wrinkles except the fold marks from the drawer. Now, maybe he was on the throne when he met his maker, and I can’t say I blame anyone for wanting to protect his dignity, but the body doesn’t tell any lies. The body doesn’t care, and speaks the truth. Like your fellow there. He’s trying to tell us something.”
At the word body, Jessica had stood, and now she excused herself. Once she was over on Christopher’s side of the adjoining rooms, Peggy asked us how Jessica was doing. We explained she was holding up well enough, and Peggy commented, “The brave ones can be so delicate. It’s why they have to be brave.” She got her coffee, and asked to review my case notes.
She wasn’t driving and in a hurry, so I was able to go into more details about my inspection of the body, and how the purple bruise-like markings of the pooled blood were on one side of Franco’s body, while the photos of how he’d been found—plus the positioning of his limbs when rigor mortis started setting in—didn’t match.
“He was definitely moved after he died,” Peggy said. “Even before you knuckleheads moved him again. Please, tell me you don’t have a hobby taxidermist there who has already started the embalming process.”
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