Vanessa’s profile was equally vague. “The founder of Lose-It-All, Vanessa Tagliacozzi has long espoused the tenets of healthy eating for healthy living, and has helped thousands of people achieve their bodyweight goals.” I glanced up at the picture; unlike Dirk, who was dressed to work out, Vanessa wore a revealing silky dress that barely covered her torso. Her gleaming black hair was slightly tousled, and her full lips were parted in a seductive smile. No wonder John was so happy to see her, I thought. Who could compete with that?
“With a degree from UCLA and years of hands-on experience, Vanessa has worked closely with the top names in the business to design a plan that has revolutionized the lives of thousands of Americans.”
She certainly had revolutionized mine, I thought. And not for the better.
But I didn’t have time to linger over Vanessa’s sexy photo. The group would be back before long—and I still had a stack of files to get through.
I sifted through the rest of the file on Lose-It-All, but found nothing of interest. The second file in the stack was labeled “supplements.” Inside were copies of several studies of weight-loss supplements, including a few of the ones Dirk had mentioned; I found a few referencing Creatine and catechins. At the bottom of the thick file was an invoice like the ones I had seen in Dirk’s room, for a delivery of EPH, Creatine, and Rhodiola rosea. EPH was circled in ink. I flipped back through, looking for any studies that related to it, but there weren’t any. Was the supplement too new to have been studied? Was that what Elizabeth was writing her article about—dangerous practices in the program?
I moved to the next file, which was labeled “press.” Inside were two ten-year-old clippings about athletes who had died or become ill while taking illegal supplements. One of them involved an entire basketball team in Denver; when three of their members became ill, parents investigated, discovering that the team’s coach, a guy named Frank Hobbes, had been giving them performance-enhancing supplements.
Another clipping was more heartbreaking—this one had occurred in a town just outside of Boulder. A young woman had died after taking supplements given her by her coach. A picture of the funeral showed a grief-stricken couple touching a white casket. The woman’s face was streaked with tears; I could only imagine what hell she must have been going through. “Ashley Mickelson’s parents mourn the death of their only child at Wednesday’s funeral,” said the caption. I stared at the grieving couple; they had caught the mother staring at the camera, and her eyes were haunted with pain and loss. I glanced over the article; apparently the coach, a young man named Dereck Crenshaw, had been imprisoned on manslaughter charges and was awaiting trial. I closed the file, relieved to be away from the woman’s haunted eyes, and her face, which looked strangely familiar. How do you go on after losing a child to a senseless tragedy like that?
And what the heck did two ten-year-old articles have to do with the Lose-It-All weight-loss retreat?
The last file was labeled “legal,” and contained copies of legal documents relating to the Lose-It-All company. Apparently it was registered under dual ownership, with Vanessa and Dirk owning equal shares. There was also a copy of another article, this one in New York, reporting that Dirk was being sued for using unauthorized weight-loss supplements at a gym in Concord, Massachusetts. The date on the article was only one month ago; apparently, one of Dirk’s clients had experienced heart palpitations, and was suing both the gym and Dirk for giving him unsafe pills.
So I hadn’t been wrong to be nervous about the pills Dirk was handing out like candy. Had his former client won the case against him, or lost? I wondered as I put the article back into the file and returned the stack to the bottom desk drawer, making sure they were in the same order that I found them. Maybe that was why he was looking so strained when he talked to Vanessa the other night. A lawsuit against Dirk would look bad for the company—and might even spark other complaints. Had Vanessa killed him to get him out of the way?
I grabbed the “legal” file once again, poring through the company information. Fifty percent of the company belonged to Dirk. But if something happened to Dirk, it all reverted to Vanessa.
I slid the file back into the stack and looked through the rest of the desk, but if Elizabeth had brought a laptop, she must have taken it with her. Likewise with the notebook I’d seen her carrying earlier. I did a cursory clean of the room, which it really didn’t need, and ten minutes later I locked the door behind me, still thinking about the contents of those files.
Which led me directly to Vanessa’s room. I was curious about those legal documents I’d seen; were they related to Dirk’s lawsuit? Or were they connected to something else?
With the ownership of the company slated to go to Vanessa in the event of Dirk’s death, she definitely had some motivation to slip a little extra something into the trainer’s morning coffee. And the lawsuits couldn’t have been good for the business, either—yet more incentive to get rid of a difficult business associate. Had the gorgeous Vanessa decided to get her deadweight partner out of the way?
Assuming, of course, Dirk was murdered, I reminded myself. But with the toxicology report pending, and the police questioning my guests, something told me it was only a matter of time before it moved from speculation to fact. And having the co-owner of a prestigious weight-loss retreat poisoned at my inn was not going to be good for business, regardless of the investigating officer’s opinion of my food’s safety.
Vanessa’s perfume wafted out into the hallway as I opened the door to her room. I didn’t bother with her dresser—no need to torment myself with the fact that she wore a size zero. Instead, after locking the door behind me, I made a beeline for the desk—and the stack of envelopes I’d shied away from earlier. Today, I opened them with no qualms.
The first two were letters from lawyers, complaining of clients who had experienced heart palpitations connected with the supplements Dirk was providing. Both threatened to sue for medical damages, which I could imagine would put a real damper on business profitability.
The third was a letter from Vanessa’s lawyer, outlining the process for divesting Dirk of his ownership in the business. Which, according to the lawyer, would be a costly and difficult process.
I scanned the letter, my mind running through the events of the last few days. Vanessa and Dirk had had a heated conversation the night before he died. Had he discovered the letter? Was he threatening to retaliate? Had she decided to take the easy way out and kill him?
And what exactly was her relationship to her business partner? Her grief certainly had seemed real yesterday. But had it been an act?
I slid the letters back into the files and went through the rest of the paperwork, locating two more interesting things. The first was a copy of an e-mail from a national daytime television show inviting Vanessa to make an appearance; the second was a letter from a literary agent offering representation for a book titled Dare to Lose-it-All. I was about to slide it back into its file when I realized that Dirk hadn’t been addressed in the letter; it had been to Vanessa alone. Did he know about the show and the book? I wondered. Or were they both Vanessa’s private projects?
When I’d scoured all the files twice and failed to find anything else of interest, I did a quick wipe-down of the bathroom, still thinking of all I’d discovered this morning. Despite Dirk and Vanessa’s cheery, can-do attitude, evidently there had been trouble in weight-loss paradise. Which might explain why one of them was now dead.
I closed and locked Vanessa’s door, then eyed the next door down, which—until this morning—had been Dirk’s. I was sorely tempted to pay it another visit, but Detective Rose had told me the room was off-limits. If—or when—they did determine Dirk had been murdered, the last thing I needed was to leave more of my fingerprints all over the place. In truth, there were probably too many already.
So I passed it by, instead doing the rounds of the other rooms. My heart sank a bit when I cleaned Greg’s room; unless I was mistaken, one of Megan�
�s long blond hairs was in the sink, and another lay on one of the pillows. It looked like their intimate conversations might have moved on to another level. Even if they have, there’s nothing you can do about it, Natalie. And it’s not your business. Still, it made my heart hurt for Carissa.
I half-expected to find my bags of chocolate chips—or at least the evidence of them—in Carissa and Megan’s room, but while there was a mostly empty bag of mini Snickers bars tucked in the closet, my baking chocolate was nowhere to be found. I did think it was odd, though, that Carissa would raid the pantry when she still had chocolate in the room. Megan’s bed was mussed, I was pleased to see. Even if she had taken the opportunity to visit Greg’s room—which was pure speculation, based on a couple of hairs, I reminded myself—at least it looked like she’d spent some of the night here with her daughter.
The sorority girls’ rooms revealed nothing of real interest, except that one of them—the pear-shaped one, Cat—seemed to have been stashing her pills rather than taking them, as there was a baggie of them poking out of the nightstand drawer. I found no indication of who my chocolate thief might be, though; whoever was raiding my pantry had done an excellent job concealing the evidence.
I had just finished the last room when the phone rang. I gathered my cleaning supplies and hurried downstairs, catching it just before it went to voice mail.
“Gray Whale Inn, can I help you?”
“May I speak with Natalie Barnes please?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Carmen Bosworth from the Bangor Daily News. I understand there’s been a suspicious death at your inn, and I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
I sank down on the chair, hoping I was in a nightmare and somebody would wake me up soon.
___
I’d barely hung up the phone and was feeling like I’d been punched in the stomach—repeatedly—when it rang a second time.
I picked it up and croaked out my standard greeting, praying it wouldn’t be Carmen Bosworth again.
Thankfully, it wasn’t. “Hey, Natalie, it’s Charlene.”
“Thank God you’re not the Bangor Daily News again.”
“Oh, no,” she breathed. “They called?”
“Yup. And they asked all kinds of interesting questions. Like if anyone had ever died or become sick after eating my food in the past, and whether the police were closing down my establishment pending investigation.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I were. That Carmen Bosworth person makes Gertrude Pickens look like my best friend.”
“I’m so sorry, Nat.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Now, what’s up with you?”
“I was calling because I have a bit of news of my own—but I don’t know if you’ll want to hear it.”
“Let me guess. Good Morning America is picking up the poisoning story,” I joked.
“No,” she said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“That’s comforting.” I gazed out at the green field sloping down behind the inn, but the serene scene did nothing to calm my nerves.
“I was talking with Ernie, who has a friend on the force over on the mainland.”
“And?”
“First, the toxicology report had a really high concentration of some chemical. So he either overdosed in a big, big way, or was poisoned.”
“Wonderful. Maybe I should call Carmen back.”
“But there’s more,” she said.
“How can there be?” I stared morosely at the calendar. I had several rooms booked for June and July—but if a story appeared in the Bangor paper, would the cancellations start rolling in?
“Here’s the kicker,” she said. “John’s not allowed to have anything to do with the case.”
My eyes jerked up from the calendar, and I gripped the phone tightly. “Why not?” I asked. As the island deputy, he wasn’t overly involved in cases to begin with—but the mainland police had often included him as a source of inside information on local goings-on.
“Apparently, if it turns out to be murder—they’re looking at him as a suspect,” she said.
I closed my eyes, still clutching the phone like it was a lifeline. Even though the only news I’d gotten through it was bad. John was a potential suspect?
“Why?”
“The cops found out about his old connection with Vanessa, years ago. And somebody saw him arguing with Dirk.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I’m just reporting what I heard.”
“Hardly conclusive evidence,” I said lightly, even though my stomach was churning.
“But enough to get him kicked off the case,” she said.
“Trust me—there are a lot more compelling options out there than John,” I said, trying to convince myself that it was true. Was it possible that my neighbor was a murderer?
Couldn’t be, I told myself.
After Charlene promised not to pass any information on to her buddies at the store, I told her what I’d discovered upstairs in the rooms.
“I knew Dirk was too good to be true,” Charlene said, sighing. “And Vanessa was trying to get rid of him—at least as far as the business was concerned. Do you think they were … well, together?”
“It’s hard to tell,” I said. “She did seem really upset when he died.”
“Maybe her company ambitions overshadowed her romantic interests,” Charlene suggested. “And it sounds like Dirk was getting into trouble with his diet pills. What do you think is in those supplements, anyway?”
“I saw the list—most of it is stuff that lots of folks use, but there’s one thing I haven’t heard of. Elizabeth’s looking into it too, I think—I’m not sure what she’s working on, but I don’t think it’s a travel article.”
“Sounds more like an exposé on the weight-loss business, if you ask me.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
We fell silent for a moment, each lost in our thoughts. Then Charlene said, “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.”
“What?”
“Matilda was in here all excited a few minutes ago. You know that skeleton?”
“The one at the lighthouse?” I asked. As if skeletons were thick on the ground. Which, lately, they kind of had been, now that I thought of it.
“Well, you know how they think it’s African-American, right?”
I gazed out the window at the lighthouse out on the rocky point. “Yeah.”
“Matilda took that on as a challenge; she spent all day yesterday at the library, going through old documents and newspapers.”
“Sounds thrilling,” I said, my eyes still on the distant white building, the little keeper’s house huddled up next to it. “Did she find anything?”
“That’s the thing. There was one African-American here during that time. His name was Otis Ball. And you’re never going to believe it, but he was a slave-catcher.”
“A what?”
“Matilda told us that back in the time of slavery—about the time Old Harry disappeared, actually—escaped slaves would come north on their way to Canada, but their owners hired slave-catchers to follow and hunt them down. Otis Ball was one of them—and apparently he thought the Underground Railroad had a way station right here on Cranberry Island.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said. “That’s crazy. Why would anyone try to force their own people back into slavery?”
“That’s what a lot of folks wondered, I’m guessing. And Matilda says it was pretty unusual—most of the slave-catchers were white. But the money was pretty good, so I guess he put his qualms aside.”
“Did he ever find what he was looking for?” I asked.
“That’s the thing; nobody knows. There was an article that said he was coming to town looking for some escaped slaves, but there’s no other mention of him.”
“Weird. He just vanished?”
“Who knows? Maybe he found the slaves and went home. Matilda’s going over to the Somesville library to see if she can fi
nd anything else on him.”
I shook my head. “The Underground Railroad—in Maine.”
“Last stop on the way to Canada, I guess. And a coastal location was probably a pretty good thing, since you could travel by boat.”
It made sense. “That hidden room in the lighthouse—do you think that might have been it? Do you think maybe Harry might have been hiding runaways there?”
“Could be,” Charlene said. “If he was, and the skeleton is African-American, the question is, who was murdered? The slave-catcher? Or somebody he was looking for?”
“And we still don’t know what happened to Harry,” I said.
“It just gives you goosebumps thinking about it, doesn’t it?”
Yes, it did. But as fascinating as it was, I had a much more recent mystery to worry about. “I’ve got to go, Charlene. But keep me posted, okay?”
“On the skeleton?”
“Well, that too, of course. But if you hear anything else about Dirk …”
“Will do,” she said. As I hung up, I heard voices coming from outside. I peeked out the window; the retreat participants were coming down the hill. John had tagged along again this morning, walking very close to Vanessa, smiling. Two days ago the sight of John coming down the road would have made my heart feel light; now, seeing him so close to Vanessa, I wished he’d just disappear. Were the police justified in keeping him out of the case? I wondered, watching John’s easy lope, and the way the sun gleamed on his sandy hair.
Had I been dating a murderer?
It’s all speculation, Nat, I told myself, ripping my eyes from John—and Vanessa, who was inches away from him—and surveying the other guests.
A few yards back, Megan and Greg were practically holding hands while Carissa glowered a few feet behind them, her plump lips pushed into a pout. Cat, Boots, and Sarah were together, as always, and Bethany trailed the group. They all looked bright red with exertion—except Vanessa and John, I noticed. And Elizabeth, who was a few steps to the left of Vanessa, looking like the cat who’d caught the canary. Why? I wondered. Had she gotten another juicy tidbit to tuck into her article?
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