by Kylie Logan
• • •
Dinner was a tad late being served.
Who would have imagined it!
No sooner had my guests come down and Kate and Chandra began passing out their parts for our version of the classic mystery, than a hum of excitement started up. Blame it on cabin fever and the weather that had us stuck inside together all these days. My guests (well, except for Levi, who stayed in the parlor until the very last minute; little Isabelle, who wasn’t feeling well; and Amanda, who refused to come down on the grounds that she didn’t want to face Ted) were actually eager to assume their roles in our little production and insisted on returning to their rooms to cobble together costumes.
As we’d predicted, Mariah was all about playing Princess Dragomiroff. She disappeared upstairs and when she came down again, she was wearing a shimmering purple caftan and a dozen gold bracelets. Ted didn’t have to stretch too much to play Foscarelli, the car salesman. When he walked into the dining room in a plaid sportcoat that was probably as old as me, I had a feeling he’d brought it along to the island just in case he happened upon a special occasion. In spite of Kate’s protestations, she and Jayce must have actually put their heads together long enough to coordinate their outfits. Kate trudged home to grab an elegant black suit and wore it with a cream-colored cami and a string of pearls, and Jayce slicked back his hair and wore a black sweater tied artfully over his shoulders. He looked so darned Continental, it took me a minute to notice that the sweater was mine.
When he finally did make an appearance, Levi . . .
I’d given him the role of Hector MacQueen, the victim’s secretary, and maybe he knew the book and knew that Hector was one of Poirot’s chief suspects from the start.
Maybe that explained why he sat at the farthest end of the table from where I took a seat and didn’t look my way the entire evening.
Ask me if I cared.
Go on, ask.
Because I didn’t. So there. As far as I could tell, Levi Kozlov and I had nothing in common, nothing we needed to say to each other, and nothing else to talk about. Unless we were talking about what he wasn’t talking about when we were talking about Peter’s murder.
So why should I possibly care?
While those thoughts played through my head, I listened to the excited burr of conversation around the table, and when the dishes were cleared (we were really scraping the bottom when it came to groceries, so it was turkey sandwiches and potato chips that night), we got down to the business of having a little fun.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” I stood. For my role as Greta Ohlsson, the Swedish missionary, I’d chosen a black skirt and the only white blouse in my closet. Unfortunately, it had short sleeves and an un-missionary-like V-neck, but I’d topped it off with a brown jacket. My hair was in a bun. My glasses were right where they belonged, on the tip of my nose. Oh yeah, I looked plenty prudish, and just a little frumpy, too.
Maybe that’s why Levi wasn’t giving me the time of day.
Ask me if I cared.
“Before we get started, I thought I should give you a little background about the book we’ve based our little dinner mystery on,” I said. Yeah, bad grammar. No one batted an eye. They were all sitting on the edges of their seats, eyes turned toward me and bright with excitement. Well, except for—
Never mind.
“Because we didn’t want to take up too much of your time, we cut down the original story considerably. In fact, we’re going to skip the beginning altogether. What you need to know at this point is that the body of Samuel Ratchett has been found in his compartment on the Orient Express. The train is stranded because of a snowstorm.” My audience appreciated this as only people stranded in a snowstorm could and a smattering of applause went up. I waited until it died down before I said, “That means the murderer is still on the train. What that murderer didn’t count on, though . . .” Call me a geek, I drew out the suspense, just a little. What the heck, if you’re going for fun, you might as go all the way. “Is that there’s a famous Belgian detective on board. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hercule Poirot!”
That was Chandra’s cue and she worked it like a pro, stepping out from the hallway and into the dining room just as I’d instructed her. Never one to shrink from the limelight, she struck a pose, one arm tossed in the air, one finger pointed to the ceiling. She’d found a raincoat somewhere and she wore it over dark pants and a shirt I was pretty sure didn’t belong to her. But then, before she slipped on the raincoat, I saw the Put-in-Bay Police Department emblem on the sleeve.
“It is moi! Hercule Poirot. The famous detective.” Sometime after she’d left the dinner table, Chandra had painted on a curling mustache, and now she stroked a finger along her upper lip. “I have come to . . . how you say . . . investigate. Yes, I have come to investigate this body you say you have found.”
Because I didn’t want to relegate any of our guests to the part of Ratchett, I figured the most delicate way to handle the problem of a dead body was just to hint at it. Chandra stepped into the hallway, peeked around the partially closed parlor door, then jumped back, her mouth open in horror.
“Mon Dieu!” she cried. Only it came out sounding more like, “Mon Die-ee-you.”
“It is Ratchett, and he has been stabbed many times. Quick, Pierre Michel.” I’d given the part of the train conductor to Meg’s little daughter, Mila, and beaming, she stepped up right when she was supposed to. “Give to me the blanket so that I can cover up this horrible sight.”
Mila did just as instructed, and I saw that when Kate and Chandra had gone out to collect props, they’d picked up Levi’s bedroll to use as a blanket.
Our Poirot untied the bedroll, flapped it open and declared, “Voila!”
Voila, indeed.
Chandra couldn’t see it from where she stood, but the rest of us in the dining room did, and a collective gasp went up.
But then, it was the only natural response, considering that when Chandra fluffed Levi’s bedroll open, a diamond tennis bracelet fell out of it and landed on the floor.
17
Remember what I said about Levi and me and the scenes we’d already played out together? Poorly plotted, average dialogue, and when it came to suspense (not to mention a satisfying denouement), they pretty much fizzled.
Well, the next morning, I found myself smack in the middle of another one, only this time, it was straight out of a noir crime novel.
Me, not so bundled since it was early and the temperature was already nudging into the forties, walking into the Put-in-Bay police station, thermal coffee mug in one hand and my heart in my throat. No shrinking violet, I, but I fully expected that the moment he saw me, Levi would tell me to mind my own business. And get the hell out of his life while I was at it.
At the front desk, Hank didn’t bother to check to see what was inside the coffee mug. But then, I don’t suppose I look like the type who’d try to smuggle in a file. Or a weapon. It was the dark curls. And the way my eyes looked so big behind the clear lenses of my Coke-bottle glasses.
Besides, Hank was no fool. Word on the street was that the ferry wouldn’t be running again until the next day. Even if I were crazy enough to try and help Levi break out of jail, there was no place he could run. Even if I believed passionately in his innocence and knew this was the only way for him to gain his freedom, there was no place for him to hide.
Just for the record, I’m not crazy.
And I wasn’t sure I believed Levi was innocent.
I had never actually seen a jail cell before, but I have to say, after years of watching Law & Order, this one was pretty much what I expected. Basic. Spartan. Gray and depressing.
When the door that led down the corridor to the town’s three cells clunked closed behind me, Levi glanced up from where he was sitting on a built-into-the-wall cot with a too-thin mattress.
“Hey.�� Okay, so it wasn’t sparkling conversation, but it’s not exactly easy to think of repartee at a time like this. Grateful I
’d brought the tall, skinny one instead of the short, roly-poly one, I poked the thermal mug through the bars. “I brought you coffee.”
Levi eyed the cup as if it were an alien that had just stepped out of the mother ship. Or maybe it was me he wasn’t sure about.
He scraped a hand through his hair and got up to accept the offering. “Thanks.” He sipped carefully and, finding the coffee wasn’t too hot, took a long drink. “Hank brought me some earlier, but it wasn’t nearly this good.”
“French roast.”
“Yeah.”
I shifted from one boot-clad foot to the other. “Have you called a lawyer?”
Levi took another drink before he answered. “I honestly haven’t had time to think about it. After what happened at dinner last night . . .”
Yeah, dinner last night.
Like a video on fast-forward, the incident played through my head, and once again, I saw that bracelet spill out of Levi’s bedroll and onto the floor. The diamonds caught the light of the chandelier over the dining room table and threw it back at us in a rainbow palette that winked and twinkled and blinded us so that, for a few, stupefied seconds, we all simply stared as if we’d been hypnotized.
And then the room erupted.
A couple people jumped out of their chairs. A few wondered out loud if this was somehow part of the play and what diamonds had to do with Murder on the Orient Express. Through the sudden, deafening rush of blood in my ears, I heard voices overlap.
“What on earth is that?”
“Are those diamonds?”
“Why would Levi be hiding a diamond bracelet in his sleeping bag?”
A few people around the table didn’t say anything at all. They just sat there with their mouths hanging open. I was, I admit, one of them.
Through it all, Levi was stone-faced and silent.
Hank, not so much. After all, Hank might have questionable ethics when it came to what he did with his ex, but he was a good cop through and through. He clearly remembered the story he’d told us in Peter’s apartment just a couple days earlier. Yeah, that one. The one about Chuck Anderson and how Hank had always suspected him in connection with the theft of a tennis bracelet covered with a couple carats of small diamonds.
A couple carats of small diamonds that flashed up at us from my dining room floor.
Talk about ending a scene on a cliffhanger. Before any of us regained our composure, Levi was being led out to Hank’s cruiser, stone-faced and silent.
He still was.
He shook his head. “I don’t have an attorney. Not one who handles criminal cases.”
“The court will appoint—”
“Yeah, I know all that. I guess I just need some time to think about it.”
“They questioned you?”
Levi’s look was so sharp, I thought this might be the get the hell out of my life moment I’d been waiting for. I held my breath and watched him curl one hand around the coffee mug.
“Hank tells me that bracelet was stolen,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. The man who stole it was wanted for questioning in connection with a number of burglaries on the island. He used to live in the apartment above the Orient Express and we think . . .” I bit off the words. This wasn’t the time—or the place—to look like a fool. “Hank thinks that the jewelry and the murder might be connected.”
Levi nodded. “That explains a lot, I suppose.”
“But you can’t be Chuck Anderson.” It wasn’t like I’d ever seen this Anderson character, but I studied Levi, anyway. There were smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes and a curl of honey-colored hair stuck up at a funny angle over his right ear. I resisted the urge to reach through the bars and smooth it down.
“If you were Chuck Anderson, Hank would have recognized you right away. Chuck ran the bait and tackle shop where the Orient Express is now.”
“Hank asked me about him.”
“And you told him?”
Levi finished his coffee and handed the cup back to me. “I told him the truth. I have no idea who he’s talking about. I don’t know anyone named Chuck Anderson.”
“But you had the bracelet Chuck Anderson stole.”
He pulled in a long breath. Unlike my other guests, Levi had done nothing in the way of assembling a costume for the murder mystery dinner. Even though he was playing the role of Hector MacQueen, a man I pictured in an understated suit and carefully arranged tie, Levi was wearing jeans along with a green flannel that was open over a black T-shirt. The vivid color of his shirt was a stark contrast to his pale face.
“I can only tell you what I told Hank,” he said. “I don’t know how the bracelet got in my bedroll.”
I wanted to believe him. But then, I bet Hank did, too. Innocent until proven guilty. That is what our entire legal system is based on, right? If I could keep that in mind, maybe my stomach would stop jumping like a Sea World porpoise. Then again, maybe it would never settle down until I got the answers to my questions.
“You were all set to leave the B and B yesterday morning.”
Okay, not a question, but it didn’t hurt to line up the facts.
Levi’s gaze snapped to mine. “And you think that’s because I wanted to get out with the bracelet.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s what you were thinking.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. But you know it’s what Hank thinks.”
“Then he’s wrong.”
“Then why were you leaving?”
“I told you. I wanted to check on the bar.”
“And get the bracelet out of the house.”
With one hand, he slapped the bars. “If that’s what you think, why did you bother to come here?”
Turnabout is fair play. Or at least that’s what they say, though who they are and why they think they should have the last word in things like this is beyond me. What I did know was that if I expected answers to my questions, it was only fair to meet Levi halfway.
Then again, I’m not sure shrugging counts as an answer.
“I couldn’t stand the thought that you’d spent the night in jail,” I admitted, because that much was true, and the only thing I was sure of when it came to Levi. “It couldn’t have been comfortable.”
“You coming here didn’t make it any more or less comfortable. Still, you came.”
“I wanted some answers.” I stepped back and eyed him. “I’ll admit that. I want to understand what’s going on. Maybe . . .” I turned this thought over in my head, the better to try to see it from all angles. “Maybe I’m not willing to let the system take over and just tell me what happened. Maybe I need to prove it all for myself. All I can think about right now is that you were all set to walk out my door, and that Hank is the one who came into the kitchen and told you to stay put.”
The briefest of smiles flickered over Levi’s lips. “Hank has reminded me of that. More than a few times. What he hasn’t come right out and done—not yet, anyway—is connected the dots. I guess it’s up to us to do that, Bea, so let’s just lay it on the line. Hank thinks the fact that I had that bracelet means I had something to do with Peter Chan’s murder.”
Yes, of course, I knew that was exactly what Hank was thinking. I just never expected that hearing the terrible thought put into words would have such an impact. It hit somewhere between my heart and my stomach, and I grabbed onto one of the bars of the cell and held on tight. All along, I’d wondered if one of my guests was connected with Peter’s murder. I just never thought . . .
Hyperventilating did little for the cool, calm image I was hoping to project. When the next breath rushed into my lungs, I clamped my lips shut and forced it to stay there. One heartbeat. Two. I told myself to get a grip. Panic would only make Levi feel worse. And it wouldn’t get me the answers I was looking for.
I forced a composure I didn’t feel. “Well, Hank will think whatever Hank is going to think. But he’s going to have to prove his theory. You might have had the bra
celet, but at least you don’t have a motive for killing Peter.”
“Well, about that . . .” Levi turned to pace the confines of the cell, and automatically, I found myself leaning forward, hoping for a glimpse of his face. I wanted to know what he was thinking. I wanted to look into his eyes. I didn’t get a chance until he came back to face me, and when he did, my stomach went cold even before he said, “I did have a reason to want Peter Chan dead.”
Lucky for me, there was a chair nearby, because when I dragged it in front of the cell and flopped into it, my legs were rubber. “Why?”
Levi scrubbed his hands over his face. “I suppose you’ll find out eventually, anyway. So will the police if they don’t know already. It happened back in Cleveland twelve years ago.”
“Anastasia Golubski?”
The name rushed out of me, and like a cattle prod, it hit Levi in the stomach. He flinched and wrapped both hands around the bars. “You know?”
“I know . . .” There was so much to tell, and honestly, I didn’t know what might help and what might be off-limits, especially considering that I didn’t know if I could believe anything Levi said. I stuck to the facts and hoped for the best. “She died after eating at Peter’s restaurant. Her family filed a civil suit, but—”
“It was a shaky case from the start.” Levi’s voice was husky. “She was an old woman and the fish wasn’t as fresh as it should have been. Anyone else would have felt icky for a couple days, then been fine. But she had a compromised immune system. Every time we tried to get the word out and tell the world what happened to her, we got shut down by Chan’s team of lawyers. They said we were slandering him. They said we were putting his business at risk. A civil suit was our only course of action. We just thought the public needed to know.”
“We.” I didn’t miss out on the single, all-important word.
“Anastasia was my grandmother.”
I let the information sink in, but if I had any hopes of it making me feel better, they were dashed. The more I thought about it, the more guilty Levi looked.