Dead In The Dining Room

by Leighann Dobbs

  Daisy handled the whole thing very well, not breaking down at all until they were done and about to leave.

  It was Stephanie’s whispered “I wish Mother were here” as she and Reginald quietly followed their stepmother and aunt back to the front of the building that seemed to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Right there in the hallway, Daisy halted then stopped, her hands over her face and her shoulders shaking from silent tears.

  “Oh dear,” Araminta said. She put a hand on Daisy’s shoulder and patted it. “There, there, darling. It’s all right. You’re doing admirably well thus far. Only a little longer, and we’ll be home.”

  Daisy took a shuddering breath. “I didn’t realize it would all be so difficult.”

  Araminta nodded sympathetically and did more patting.

  “I—I only wanted us to be a real family, Araminta. But Stephanie… and Reginald… and now Archibald is gone, and I feel so alone, but—” She looked up at the children, her eyes tear-filled and red from crying. “We only have each other now.”

  Stephanie’s lips pressed together tightly, and her chin quivered, but she lowered her gaze. Reginald merely stood beside Stephanie, working his jaw for a moment while he seemed to ponder the situation. Finally, he released his sister’s hand and went to Daisy. He hugged her then patted her back consolingly.

  “We do have each other, Daisy. We have each other,” he repeated, this time pinning his sister with slightly narrowed eyes, as if daring her to deny it. “We are Moorecliffs, and we can do this. We shall do it. Together.”

  The sound of boot heels clicking on the tiled floor followed by the uncomfortable sound of the clearing of throats made Reginald lift his head. Araminta turned to see who had joined them and sighed. Detective Hershey.

  “Ms. Moorecliff. Araminta,” he said, nodding to each of them in turn. “Is everything alright?”

  Reginald surprised her by speaking up. “Of course, Detective. My stepmother is a little distraught. She has lost her husband, after all.”

  Araminta thought she saw a slight flush on the inspector’s cheeks for a moment. He nodded in deference to Reggie, then his eyes landed on Stephanie. His gaze turned inquisitive, and Araminta realized he hadn’t yet met this member of the Moorecliff family.

  “Ivan Hershey, this is my great-niece, Stephanie. Stephanie, Detective Hershey. He’s leading the investigation into your father’s untimely death.”

  Ivan stepped forward, extending his hand. “My pleasure, Miss Moorecliff, though regrettable is the circumstance.”

  For the first time since she’d arrived yesterday, Araminta saw Stephanie smile. “Still, it’s lovely to meet you, Detective Hershey.”

  Araminta’s eyebrows rose at her obvious discomfiture. Clearing her throat for attention, she said, “Hershey, we were on our way out. Perhaps you could walk with us. I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course,” Hershey said then nodded to the two officers who had accompanied him into the building. “If you will please excuse me, gentlemen, I’ll only be a second.”

  He waited for Araminta and her family to move then followed them out the door.

  Outside, Araminta turned to him. “I’m curious about the autopsy report, Hershey. Just how did the poison get into my nephew’s system?”

  She needed clarification because she wasn’t certain whether the poison was in his food or in the wine.

  Ivan turned his attention from Stephanie, who had followed her stepmom and her brother and was waiting to get into the car. “The coroner established that there were no physical particles of anything containing the convallatoxin in Mr. Moorecliff’s stomach, so the poison had to have been distilled somehow.”

  Hmmm. Which must mean they’d found no leaves or petals from the flowers, Araminta decided. Then she recalled having read that the water could become toxic in a vase filled with lily of the valley. Whoever had poisoned Archie must have used the water from the vase of flowers. It must have been in his wine. But which vase? And who, exactly, had done the deed? Would it have been Trinity or Harold? And what on earth had they done with either the vase or the goblet? “Thank you, Detective. I have one question more, if I may. Have you determined yet who is responsible for my nephew’s death?”

  She peered at him closely, but he held his speculative secrets—if, indeed, he had any—with what Araminta felt was remarkable aplomb.

  “We have a few leads we’re still investigating, Ms. Moorecliff,” he said as he glanced at Daisy. Or was it Stephanie? Araminta wasn’t sure. “But now that we have obtained a copy of your nephew’s will, we can add at least a few more.”

  Araminta saw Daisy’s eyes widen at his statement, just before she turned and slid into the car. Curious, she thought. Was Daisy worried the detective now found her part in Archie’s death suspicious? “Thank you, Hershey. If you discover anything new, please do give us a call.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  On the ride home, Daisy had mentioned she had a few calls to make to the investors of Moorecliff Motors before she could retire to her room for a rest. But when they arrived back at the Manor, Bernard was already in Archie’s study, with Arun and Sasha pacing by the door.

  “You’re home early,” he said, immediately vacating his brother’s chair the moment Daisy stepped inside the room. “Well, don’t mind me.” He clasped his hands together while he moved toward the door. “I just finished what I needed to do and will leave the room to you.”

  “And what was it that needed to be done?” Araminta asked Bernard.

  Still moving toward the door, he shrugged. “I just wanted to check in on my side of things back at the West Coast division before Daisy takes ov—uh, steps up,” he corrected. “Now that she’ll be in charge, I wanted to make sure everything is running smoothly and in tip-top shape for her.”

  Daisy managed a shaky smile. “Thank you, Bernard. I appreciate the gesture and your persistence.”

  “Quite all right. Think nothing of it,” he said. “I am happy to be at your service.”

  “Don’t you have your own laptop that you travel with?” Araminta had to admit that she wasn’t exactly up on all the newfangled technology, but she was pretty sure that executives of even smaller companies had their own laptops.

  “Sure.” Bernard smiled down at her as if he thought it was quaint that she knew about laptops. “But Archie’s home computer has a VPN I can use to connect to the company without going through the internet. It’s much more secure, and I don’t have that on my laptop.”

  Araminta had no idea if this was true. She glanced at Daisy, who nodded. Okay, then apparently Bernard had a good reason to be using the computer. She cautioned herself to be wary. She was starting to suspect even the most innocent of actions.

  Bernard left them then, and for a moment, Araminta simply studied her niece by marriage, giving Daisy a more thorough once-over. “Are you certain you’re all right, dear? Back at the funeral parlor, you seemed a little more than shaky.”

  “I could use a bite to eat, I think. I must shamefully confess to skipping breakfast, but otherwise, I’m fine,” she assured Araminta. “I was merely a bit taken off guard for the moment by the absolute finality of it all.”

  Araminta wondered if she was being honest with her. Was it possible that Daisy was actually the one who had poisoned poor Archie? If so, pretending to be upset would be prudent. But was Daisy pretending? Her tears were certainly genuine, but maybe she was a good actress. Araminta needed to solve the mystery of the goblets or find the vase that the lily of the valley flowers had been in. Surely one of those would hold a clue to the identity of the killer.

  “I’ll ask Mary to send up a tray and leave you to your work, then. But if you should need anything, promise you’ll call. I’ll only be somewhere in the manor.”

  Before she made it to the stairs, however, Araminta found Harold busy with something at a table in the hallway. He was carefully arranging today’s freshly cut flowers in an antique vase�
��a tall one, Araminta noted—while yesterday’s wilted bouquet lay spent on the table beside today’s choices for a new one. No lily of the valley, she quickly noted.

  She heard a noise. Glancing up, she saw Bernard climbing the stairs, headed to his room. Before she could follow suit to check again for a vase, Stephanie came in from a side door with a handful of short-stemmed roses she’d obviously snipped from the bush twining up the trellis outside the kitchen near the garden. She carried the sweet-smelling blossoms to the table for Harold so that he could add them to his arrangement, but poor Harold didn’t even hear her, though she was standing right beside him. She had to nudge him to get his attention.

  “Would you like to add these to the vase you have there?” Stephanie asked as she pointed from one to the other, her voice overly loud so that he could hear her.

  “These are lovely, Miss Stephanie. Thank you for bringing them. But the stems are far too short for this one.” Rather than hurt her feelings, he quickly offered, “I have a different vase for the shorter-stemmed flowers. A rose bowl, actually. One moment. I shall fetch one from the cupboard in the dining room.”

  Stephanie nodded, and he disappeared to do just that. She took a deep breath of the roses and turned to Araminta. “I do love puttering in the garden, so I figure while I’m here I might as well find some enjoyment.”

  “Indeed. Gardening is so therapeutic, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  Araminta stared at the roses, lost in thought for a moment. Something Harold had said had prompted a shadow of a thought. Then realization struck. Lily of the valley was short like the roses. They would have short stems too.

  She’d been searching for taller vases, but clearly they would have been in a shorter one or a rose bowl, as Harold had mentioned and was even now searching for. Just as she was about to head upstairs to renew a search of her own, Harold returned with a clean and dry low bowl, which he filled with water from a pitcher on the hallway table, then he carefully put the roses in.

  “There,” he said once he was satisfied with how they looked. He turned to Stephanie. “Shall I place these on the coffee table in the parlor?”

  “That would be perfect.” Stephanie followed him down the hall.

  Araminta watched them go, a frown darkening her features. Harold seemed very familiar with those short vases and what went in them. Harold was inheriting money from Archie and was old and might not have wanted to wait to get that money. Was it possible that such a thoughtful, genuinely sweet old man could be guilty of a crime as horrible as murder?

  Chapter Fifteen

  In her suite of rooms, Araminta sat on the comfy sofa in the lounge near the big picture windows overlooking the gardens, her thoughts busy on figuring out the identity of Archie’s killer.

  The morning had been a bit hectic, with the reading of the will and the visit to the funeral parlor, but at least she’d learned something important and possibly vital to discovering his killer’s identity: whoever had poisoned Archie had used a liquid extract to do it.

  Now that Detective Hershey had clarified there were no actual flowers or leaves from the lily of the valley in Archibald’s system, she knew the convallatoxin had to have come from a vase containing water in which the flower’s stems had sat for some time. Her research on the internet indicated that the flowers would have had to have been soaking for a few days at least. But knowing this still didn’t help her figure out who had killed Archie, and she was still having trouble working out the how.

  If the poison was in water from a vase, she was almost certain whoever had given it to her nephew had dosed his wine with the awful toxin but not the whole bottle of wine, as they had all drunk from it. It must have been in the goblets, perhaps swabbed on the sides and maybe a bit of liquid on the bottom. Or had they somehow poured it in after the wine? Would swabbing it on the glass be enough to kill? With Archie’s heart problems, it might be.

  If it was the goblet, when had the killer switched it with the one from the set in the dining room? Reggie had the other five goblets that matched the one that was different in the dining room, but where was the original goblet that had been switched out? Did the killer still have it?

  Strange, she thought, that Trinity still hadn’t mentioned to anyone in the household that one of the goblets didn’t match. On second thought, Araminta realized she might not have needed to report it. If she was the killer, she wouldn’t be worried about bringing the matter to the family’s attention. And with the family all leery about eating in the formal dining room after what had happened there, the goblets hadn’t been needed, so if Trinity were innocent, she might not have had occasion to notice. Of course, someone had to put them back after the dinner, but everyone was so upset over the death that it stood to reason that a mismatched goblet might escape notice. The differences were very subtle, after all.

  Either Trinity or Harold would have had ample opportunity to switch the goblets, but only Harold would have been able to ensure that particular goblet went to Archie.

  If Daisy was the killer, as Stephanie was wont to insist, she would have had to tamper with Archie’s goblet at the table in order to be sure someone else didn’t get it. How would she have pulled that off? It wasn’t like she could have come bearing a vase full of water to the dinner table. No, there had to have been something else—something to get the poison to the dining room and into Archie’s wine unnoticed. But what?

  With her thoughts centered on Daisy, Araminta went back over the details of dinner that night with one concern front and center: where was the poison? All she could remember was hearing the clasp on Daisy’s purse clicking open and closed, open and closed, as if Daisy were nervously fiddling with the thing in her lap while the family conversed. A vase, even a low one, would not have fit in there.

  Arun jumped up on her vanity, accidentally knocking over a couple of perfume vials in his attempt to admire himself in the mirror. As Araminta put them to rights, she realized either of them would have been the perfect size in which to store a little poison. And Daisy…

  Araminta felt the same way she had the day she’d fallen from her pony because her father had decided it was time that she learned to ride the thing instead of talk to it all day—winded. With something as simple as an empty perfume vial at her disposal, Daisy could easily have transported the convallatoxin to the dining room in her purse. No one would have found it suspicious because Daisy had been bringing her purses with her to dinner forever.

  Another terrible thought occurred to Araminta: had Daisy been planning to murder her husband right from the beginning of their relationship? Was that why she’d brought her purse to dinner every single time they’d come to sit down with the family?

  She’d met with a man in the garden the night before Archie’s death, and she did have the most to gain from his death—the Moorecliff money and the motor company that had been in the family for multiple generations. She’d been given everything. And now…

  Araminta felt nauseated. Was Stephanie right, after all? Araminta had wanted Archibald to find happiness so badly after his first wife had died. Despite the large age difference, she’d been thrilled when Daisy had come into the picture because her nephew had finally seemed happy again. But what if Daisy had been planning to murder him all along? Had Araminta’s judgment really been so clouded?

  Heartbroken but sure now that she’d been looking in the wrong direction by suspecting Trinity and Harold of Archibald’s murder, Araminta rushed out to find Daisy and confront her about the purse, the poison, and her nephew’s death.

  Downstairs, she saw Stephanie open the door instead of Harold to accept a delivery of condolence cards and flowers.

  “News of Father’s death has already spread since the reading of the will this morning,” she told Araminta.

  There were so many cards already that she had begun to place them in a box for Daisy to go through later. The flowers, she’d set around on various shelves and tables near the entryway and even in the pa
rlor. There were so many that poor Harold couldn’t keep up by himself, so she had volunteered to help. And now almost every empty surface had been filled with a bowl or vase. If they kept coming, she would soon be forced to leave them on the floor.

  “Where is Daisy?” Araminta asked.

  Stephanie pointed toward Archibald’s study. Sasha and Arun were already there, prancing back and forth before the door. “In there. She went in right after we came home, remember? I suppose now we’ll hardly see her anymore. She’ll be so busy doing whatever she wants with the family’s company and money that we may never have to deal with her again.”

  Araminta couldn’t help but hear the pain in Stephanie’s voice. She did believe Daisy was her father’s killer, after all. “Are you sure she’s still in there?”

  Stephanie nodded. “I’ve been either here or in the parlor practically since we arrived back this morning. Both are close enough for me to know if she’d left the room. I’ve yet to see her crack open the door.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Araminta wasted no more time. She marched over to Archibald’s study and rapped her knuckles against the door. From inside, Daisy called for her to enter. Araminta did so, the cats rushing in before her.

  Sure now that she knew who Archie’s killer was, she placed both her fists on her hips and demanded, “Tell me where you kept the poison.”

  “Poison?” Looking up from the stack of papers strewn over the desktop, Daisy seemed confused, but her expression immediately changed to disbelief then disappointment. “Oh, Araminta. Not you too. You’ve been speaking with Stephanie, I presume?”

  Araminta shook her head. “No, I’m merely observant and obsessive about details. I know it was you who picked the flowers. You’ve denied it, of course, but my window looks down over the garden, and the night before Archie died, I saw you—both of you—out there. Who was the man you were meeting, Daisy? Are you hoping to marry him soon, now that you’ve offed my nephew?”