“Let me just take care of a few things and I’ll bring a pot right up,” I said. “How many cups?”
“Three would be good,” he said. “Thanks for offering.” Marge gave me a dubious look as I turned back to her. She knew I was up to something. “I’ll just go over the mirrors and windows up here, okay?” I said, feeling sweat spring up on my brow.
Marge gave me a slightly affronted look and harrumphed as she let herself into Sarah’s room. I, on the other hand, walked as casually as I could to the end of the hall and unlocked the door to Elizabeth’s room.
Once the door was locked behind me again, I made a beeline for the desk.
The stack of files had moved from the bottom drawer to the desktop, which made things very convenient for me. I tore through them all again, to see if there was anything new. Unfortunately, there wasn’t—until I got to the last page of the press file.
The articles hadn’t changed, but as I scanned the last one—the manslaughter case in Boulder, Colorado, I noticed several places where the name of the coach accused of the crime had been underlined. Dereck Crenshaw. I suddenly remembered the name Marge had told me Elizabeth was asking about on the phone the other day: Eric Kershaw.
Could Marge have misheard the name?
My eyes scanned the article again. Something else stuck out at me: Mickelson. I knew I’d heard someone mention that name before. But who?
I stared at the clipping one last time, and then, in a split second, everything clicked.
When I let myself out of Elizabeth’s room a moment later, the policeman was no longer stationed outside Dirk’s room, and Marge was nowhere to be seen. Should I go find the officer and share my suspicions?
No, I decided. First I’d confirm it.
I walked a short way down the hall and knocked at another door. When nobody answered, I put down my bucket of supplies and unlocked it, slipping into the room and locking it behind me.
The desk was my first stop, and my hands shook with excitement—and fear—as I pulled the drawers open one by one. But they were all empty.
Frustration mounting, I yanked open the nightstand drawers, again coming up empty. It wasn’t until I got to the makeup kit in the bathroom that I found what I was looking for.
It was in the bottom of a makeup kit, and if I hadn’t been looking for it, I never would have found it.
It was just a scrap of paper adhered to plastic—the remnants of a blister pack that had evidently been thrown away. But the letters ‘edrine’ were printed on it.
I set down the makeup bag and headed for the door, ready to tell the police what I knew. But just as I left the bathroom, the doorknob jiggled—and Cat walked into her room.
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, closing the door softly behind her.
“Just cleaning up a little,” I said.
“You left your cleaning supplies outside,” she said.
“I just realized that,” I lied. “I was heading out to get them. Sorry to disturb you.”
Her eyes flicked from me to the picture on her bureau, and mine followed involuntarily. It was of a teenaged girl, her eyes the same color as her mother’s.
I dragged my eyes away a second too late.
“What are you doing in my room?” Cat asked again, her voice deadly quiet. Her face was eerily blank; it sent a chill down my spine.
“I told you. I was just cleaning.”
“What were you looking for?”
I swallowed. “Nothing.” She took a step toward me. “The police are right down the hall,” I said, trying to forestall her from trying anything.
“No they’re not,” she said with a smile. “I just saw them heading downstairs.”
“I’d better go get them tea, then,” I said, walking toward the door and trying to pretend I didn’t know she was a murderer.
“You’re going to tell them, aren’t you?” she asked in a dreamy voice.
“Tell them what?” I said, heart pounding in my chest. The air in the room had changed, and there was no doubt that I was dealing with a severely unhinged woman.
“He deserved it, you know. He killed my daughter, and never paid the price. If I didn’t stop him, he would have killed again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“Yes, you do. You know. And then when Boots made the connection, I had to make her go away, too. She would have spoiled it all. Fortunately, the police believed me when I told them I saw your boyfriend leaving her room last night. And I sprinkled a tiny bit of sawdust in her room, just to be sure.”
She was the reason they’d arrested him, I realized. Rage bubbled up alongside the fear inside me. “What connection did she make?” I asked, surreptitiously scanning the room for something I could use as a weapon. Now that she’d confessed, she’d never let me out of here alive—not if she could help it, anyway.
“My daughter’s death,” she said. “He poisoned my little girl, you know. Poisoned her, and walked away scot-free.”
“How awful,” I said consolingly, eyeing the door behind her. Could I get past her and raise the alarm?
“And the supplements,” Cat went on. “She started making the connection after Dirk died. Something I said tipped her off—she came to ask me about it, last night. I had to drag her all the way back to her room, you know. I don’t look strong,” she said, her large eyes unfocused, “but a mother will do anything for her child. Anything,” she whispered, stepping toward me.
“You changed your name,” I said.
“That’s right,” she said. “After the divorce, I went back to my maiden name. Never liked Mickelson anyway. And it made it so much easier when I signed up for the retreat. The jerk didn’t even recognize me—and he’d killed my child!” She was revving up again—her eyes burned in her pale face.
“How did you get Dirk to take the ephedrine?” I asked, stalling for time. The lamp on the nightstand. I took a step backwards, edging toward it. She didn’t have a weapon that I could see—but she’d managed to kill Boots without one. If I grabbed it and hit her over the head …
“It was a problem, I’ll admit,” she said. “I needed to get him to take a lot of them. But he took all those supplements, you see, so I just ground up all those pills and stuffed his little capsules with them.” She smiled at me—an awful, empty smile. “You made it so easy, leaving those keys down there where anyone could get to them. I did it while you were downstairs talking with your neighbor friend, and Vanessa.” She paused. “She really should thank me, you know. If I didn’t stop him, he would have killed again—and she would have been an accessory.”
She’d poisoned him that first night, I realized.
“What did he do to your daughter?” I asked, hoping to jolt her out of her daze.
“She was so beautiful,” Cat said. “She was the light of our lives. We were so proud of her when she joined the varsity team. And Dirk was her coach … only he had a different name then. Dereck. Dereck Crenshaw.”
The Eric Kershaw Marge had heard Elizabeth asking about on the phone the other day. Elizabeth had been onto him, too.
“So he gave your daughter too much of something?”
Cat nodded, the same haunted look on her face I’d seen the other day—and subconsciously recognized from the article I’d found in Elizabeth’s room. “The same thing he died from. It was to help her win a race. Only she never crossed the finish line. She had a heart attack fifty yards in.” Her face was stricken. “Her last race.”
“So you were afraid he’d strike again,” I said. “Why wait so long, though?”
“He changed his name,” she said. “I didn’t know where to find him—he disappeared after they dropped the charges.”
“They dropped the charges?”
“No evidence,” she said, her voice hard. “But I knew. I knew.”
“How did you find him again?” I asked.
“I saw his picture in a magazine, and I re
cognized him immediately. He was back to his old tricks, killing again—and he never paid for what he did to my darling.” Her eyes drifted to the photo of the bright-eyed girl on her dresser. “I signed up for this retreat and planned what I was going to do. And it would have worked, too.” She seemed to remember suddenly that I was still in the room with her. “Still will.”
She stepped toward me.
“Don’t be stupid, Caterina. The police are right downstairs. They’ll hear you—and besides, we’re in your room.”
“They’ll never know,” she said dreamily. “They won’t hear, and I’ll be sure to relocate your body when it’s over. No one heard Boots with the pillow over her face. I hated to do it, but I had no choice.” She advanced toward me, grabbing a pillow from the bed. I backed up, stumbling over a hitch in the rug. She darted forward, her hand closing on my arm just as I grasped the solid brass lamp.
I swung it at her, but she ducked. The shade glanced off her shoulder and tumbled to the floor. I swung again wildly, but missed. Then, with a strength that amazed me, Caterina shoved me onto the bed. I got one look at her wild eyes; there was nothing human left in her. Then she smashed the pillow into my face, throwing her body on top of it.
I struggled, thrashing against her, scratching at her arms, pulling at her shirt, trying to get her off me. But the pillow just came down harder.
My lungs burned, and I sucked in a deep breath—but there was no air. Nothing. A wave of dizziness overtook me—and the sudden, savage urge to live. I flailed at my assailant, but she was made of iron—unflinching, unmoving. Finally, I gathered all I had and pulled my right arm back, balled my hand into a fist, and swung with all my strength.
There was a cracking sound, and an explosion of pain in my hand.
But the pressure lightened.
I pushed against the pillow as hard as I could; it moved a bit, enough for me to get a lungful of air, before it came down hard, again.
I swung again, but hit only air. And again. I was about to succumb to darkness when my fist made contact one more time—and this time I heard the crack of the bones in my fingers. But the pressure faltered—this time, enough for me to shove the pillow off my face.
With the pillow off my nose and mouth, I gasped for breath and rolled off the bed, struggling to get to my feet. Caterina was up, blood running from her broken nose, eyes just as wild as before. She reached for the lamp on the floor—before I could stop her, she had it in her hand and was swinging it at me.
“Help!” I yelled, my voice hoarse. I ducked just in time and stumbled toward the door. “Help!” My voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well.
“Shut up!” she hissed, advancing on me as I scrabbled at the door. I was trying to turn the knob when there was a crack, and pain exploded in my head.
“No,” I said, my knees buckling beneath me. Then I was on the hard, cold floor, looking up at Cat’s mad eyes as she dropped to her knees beside me, reaching for the pillow on the floor behind her. She smashed it into my face again, but I scooted backward and kicked out with everything I had, feeling the soft, sickening thud as my foot made contact.
There was a short gasp. Then the pillow fell away and Caterina crumpled to the floor beside me.
I was struggling to my feet when the doorknob jiggled. “Open up!” came a voice from the other side.
I reached for the knob, and realized hazily that the door was locked. It took three tries before I managed to slide the deadbolt back; then the red-haired cop exploded into the room.
“What happened?” he asked, taking in my wild appearance, the woman sprawled on the hardwood floor, blood leaking from her smashed nose.
“She killed Dirk,” I whispered. “Ephedrine—in her makeup bag, in the bathroom. Killed Boots, too,” I said. “John—he’s innocent. She framed him.”
“Calm down, ma’am,” he said. “I need to get a paramedic out here—both of you look like you’re in pretty bad shape.”
“She’s a murderer,” I said, my voice hoarse. I pointed at the pillow on the floor beside Cat. “She tried to kill me with that. Just like she killed Boots.”
“Let’s get you settled down,” he said, “and you can tell me everything. From the beginning.”
Once they’d made sure I wasn’t suffering from any potentially fatal injuries—I had a mild concussion from the lamp, and some bumps and bruises—I’d told the police everything I’d discovered. They’d searched Caterina’s room, and after finding the scrap of ephedrine packaging in the bathroom—and getting something of a confession from Cat herself—they’d escorted her from the inn in handcuffs.
I knew because I’d heard her yelling all the way down to the path. “He deserved it!” she screamed. “He killed my daughter! My only child!” Then, a moment later, she started moaning. “Ashley. Ashley. I miss you so much …”
Goosebumps rose on my skin at the plaintive call. Her cries were heartrending—but not enough for me to regret that she was being escorted off the premises. The woman had, after all, just tried to kill me.
They took me to the mainland hospital for a checkup, then spent an hour or two quizzing me on the details of what had happened upstairs with Cat, but I was back on the island—and in my re-opened kitchen—in time to cook dinner. Gwen had insisted I lie down, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it; concussion or no concussion, I still wanted to make things right at the inn. And I was still upset because I hadn’t heard from John. I needed something to distract me.
Tonight, I’d decided, I was boiling up the lobsters Tom had caught earlier in the week. Of course we wouldn’t be using melted butter, but I was looking forward to a dinner of the sweet, tender meat with fresh corn on the cob on the side.
Since three of our guests wouldn’t be joining us, there were more than enough lobsters to go around, so I asked Gwen and Charlene to join us; Marge had already left for the day, and I hadn’t been able to get in touch with her. I’d wanted to ask John, too, but he hadn’t turned up. And there was no way I was going down to talk with him—even though Gwen told me he was back on the island. Why hadn’t he come to see me? I wondered, feeling acid burn in my stomach.
Gwen had run upstairs to grab a sweater when I heard a male voice on the other side of the kitchen door.
I walked to the door, my heart in my throat, hoping it was John, and pushed it open.
Greg stood there, his broad back to me, talking on a cell phone.
“I’m telling you, I can’t continue to represent your interests. Her behavior has been above reproach,” he said, pacing back and forth across the peach and blue rug. “Even in very trying circumstances. But yours, sir—you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
There was silence yet again, and then he said, “You’ve been a serial adulterer! She told me about the phone bills, about the credit card charges for hotels, the trip to Hawaii with your ‘business associate’. She knows you were planning to divorce her and abandon her, along with your only child. You were trying to entrap her when she was at her most vulnerable.” His voice rose so that he was almost bellowing, and I eased the door partially closed.
There was another pause; then he said formally, “I must inform you that I am resigning from the case, effective immediately. I will return your deposit when I get back to my office.” After another moment, he said, “And a very good day to you, sir!” and jabbed at a button on the phone with an index finger, breathing heavily.
I slid away from the doorway and busied myself shucking corn. So that’s who Greg had been investigating! It hadn’t been Dirk at all; it had been Megan!
Well, I thought as Gwen hurried down the stairs behind me, that was one mystery solved.
But there was still another that remained unresolved. And I wasn’t thinking of the body in the lighthouse, either.
My eyes drifted to the window—and John’s carriage house down the hill. I knew John had been released, but I still hadn’t heard from him. And despite my relief at the discovery that he wasn’t in
volved in Dirk’s death—or Boots’—my heart ached that he hadn’t come to see me.
Maybe, I thought, my heart feeling swollen and painful, it really was over between us.
“I almost forgot to tell you,” Gwen said as she filled a huge pot with water. “Gertrude called again—so did someone from the Bangor paper. I told them both there had been an arrest, and that you—and the inn—had nothing to do with it. You might want to talk to them, though.”
“I’ll call them tomorrow,” I said, my eyes still glued to John’s front door.
“I still can’t believe her own friend killed her,” Gwen said, shaking her head as she walked up beside me. “Dirk I can understand—but poor Boots. She didn’t deserve what Cat did to her.” Gwen paused, peering at me as I stood staring at a half-husked corncob. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said, swiping at my eyes and tearing off another wad of husk. “Just fine.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go upstairs and lie down?”
“Positive,” I said, pasting on a smile. “Let me just finish husking this corn and we’ll put together a salad, okay?”
My niece assented, shooting me worried glances as she filled the second pot and pulled a bag of lettuce out of the fridge.
___
Just as I was about to put the first lobsters into boiling water—feeling guilty, as I always did, at being the agent of death—there was a knock at the kitchen door.
It was John.
I put the lobster back into the sink and walked over to answer it, feeling both numb and apprehensive at the same time.
He was wearing a red T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and the wind filled the steamy kitchen with his clean male scent as I opened the door.
“Hi,” he said, his eyes darting to the lump above my right eye. He reached out to touch it, but I shied away.
“Come in,” I said tonelessly, and as he closed the door behind him and slid into one of my kitchen chairs, I grabbed the lobster again.
“Are you doing okay?” he asked. “I heard she gave you a concussion.”
“I’m fine,” I said, closing my eyes as I put the first lobster into the pot.
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