by Josh Lanyon
It worried me that Trevor had been so quick to accuse John. Not least because I had not been awake all night and could not actually vouch for John’s whereabouts when Vanessa had been killed—unless she’d been killed after three a.m. Were the authorities liable to jump to the same conclusions? John’s company could back him up as far as why he’d been on the tour, and the departure of the Scherfs and Rices explained why he’d left when he had. But neither of those things proved John hadn’t decided on a little extracurricular homicide, especially after he’d publicly demonstrated his antipathy for Vanessa.
One thing I’d learned from true crime television was that miscarriages of justice were not as rare as we’d all like to believe.
I suggested, “Maybe someone with some medical experience should take a look?”
I was thinking of Wally. He was a pediatrician, according to his bio. But Yvonne immediately volunteered her services.
Nobody had much to say to that. Ben stared at her.
“Unless you have a better idea,” Yvonne said.
Since Wally didn’t speak up, I didn’t have a better idea—but I wasn’t sure how helpful the offer was since according to her group bio Yvonne was a retired veterinarian.
In any case, her expertise wasn’t needed. Nedda said wearily, “I’ll examine her.” She explained she was a retired GP.
“Why haven’t you said so before now?” Yvonne demanded. “Why isn’t it in your bio?”
“I didn’t feel like spending the trip dispensing free medical advice,” Nedda told her.
There was further discussion, a little debate, and then Nedda disappeared upstairs with Elizabeth.
We waited in a stiff and somber silence.
Hamish muttered something about shock, left the room, and returned shortly after with a bottle of whisky. A red-eyed maid followed, glasses rattling on the tray she held. Hamish began to pour.
After a time, Alison said, “I wonder if arrangements have been made for dinner.”
“Dinner!” Daya exclaimed hysterically. “How can you think about dinner at a time like this?” Roddy patted her hand and made shushing noises. Funny how Daya had seemed the dominant partner in that relationship until tragedy struck. Now she was practically clinging to him.
“It’s my job to look out for your well-being,” Alison said defensively.
“Of course, it is, dear. People have to eat,” Rose said reasonably.
Alison did not leave the room however. No one moved from their chair. We continued to wait, listening to the whispering rain gossiping to the windows.
At last Nedda returned with Elizabeth. “It looks like her heart gave out.” Nedda’s expression was grave.
“Then it was a natural death?” Wally seemed oddly relieved.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t so odd. The relief in the room at Nedda’s words was palpable.
Nedda hesitated. “We tried to phone the mainland. No go.”
My heart sank as I studied her face. There was worry in her eyes.
“Phone the mainland?” Sally repeated. “Why? I thought the authorities were on their way.”
Elizabeth said, “And so they are. In the meantime, we’re experiencing severe weather conditions. There are problems with the phones and broadband after the afternoon’s lightning storms. As soon as the storm lets up—”
I was still watching Nedda. Yes, she was worried and trying to hide the fact. I said, “Which is likely to be when?”
“I-it’s difficult to say. The storm is supposed to pass tonight.”
“You must have a radio or some way of communicating in an emergency,” I said to Elizabeth.
“But the authorities are already coming,” Sally persisted.
“Och, it’s not only us,” Elizabeth said. “There’s likely a problem with blown power fuses at the radio station at Wideford Hill radio station on Orkney. It’s happened before. Last time it resulted in a communications blackout in the Northern Isles, disrupting phones and emergency services.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Vance said.
“Language,” Yvonne snapped.
“Yes, it is,” Vance replied.
Ben scowled at him.
“We can try the radio,” Hamish volunteered.
Sally opened her mouth, scanned Nedda’s face, closed her mouth.
“Let’s do that,” Wally said.
Nedda went with Wally and Hamish to radio the mainland, but they were back shortly after.
“No go,” Wally told us. I thought Nedda must have had a chance to talk to him in private because the alarm in his eyes matched the worry in hers.
* * *
We dined by candlelight.
Not from choice. The power went out midway through the meal.
“It could be worse,” Rose observed. “It could have gone while dinner was being cooked.”
One thing for sure, between the flickering candlelight throwing sinister shadows over everyone’s faces, and the rolling boom of thunder crashing overhead, there was no shortage of ambiance.
It probably goes without saying it was a weird night. A little too And Then There Were None for my taste. With the exception of Daya who, according to Roddy, was lying prostrate upstairs with another headache, we were all in attendance, and at first the evening was almost cathartic as we talked about the books and how much it had meant to meet Vanessa even if only briefly. We discussed the fate of Buried Secrets, but there wasn’t much mystery there. Vanessa had said the book was already sent in to her publisher.
We talked about how Vanessa’s death would likely be received on social media and in the news, and then we started wondering aloud if we would be interviewed and what that would be like and whether—this from Vance—there might be opportunities for us in that.
“What kind of opportunities?” Laurel asked, frowning.
Vance shrugged. “Sometimes papers pay for photos and interviews.”
“Photos?” Elizabeth said.
“Speaking hypothetically,” Vance said.
His too-careless tone made me glad Elizabeth had the foresight to lock Vanessa’s bedroom. It’s amazing how frequently that gets overlooked in mystery novels.
We were all shocked, but I thought Vanessa’s death separated us into two camps. Jim, Wally, Ben, Roddy, Vance...they were clearly there to accompany the real fans. They had not signed on for murder, but they were not grieving. Laurel, Nedda, Sally, Rose, Trevor, the Poe girls and I were the devotees. Daya was presumably a super fan, but she was dealing with her grief in her own way.
Yvonne was the interesting one. To me, Yvonne seemed tuned out. Literally tuned out, as in listening to another channel set to a higher frequency that none of us could hear. Maybe that blunted affect was shock. She was an unusual personality anyway, and extreme circumstances inevitably highlighted her peculiarities.
Whatever the cause, she had very little to say, eating her meal with apparent satisfaction—which was unusual right there—and listening to the rest of us without comment.
Sadness aside, it was a delicious meal. The starter of game soup was followed by roast haunch of sika deer with mashed potatoes, and vegetables drizzled in a port and redcurrant jelly sauce. I was thinking none of us would be hungry, but we all ate, myself included. We even decimated the cheese plate. And there was whisky. More whisky.
By then, we were all half-crocked, which is probably why Sally suggested that we should work together to figure out who had killed Vanessa.
I almost choked on my Laphroaig 10.
Nedda said, “What the what? I never said she was murdered!”
“You didn’t have to, old girl,” Roddy told her, righting the empty wineglass he’d knocked over. “Perfectly obvious to anyone with eyes in their head.”
“It’s the safest way,” Sally said defensively, in response to my sputtering. “We each
tell everything we know. Then there’s no reason for anyone to try to shut us up.”
“You underestimate yourself, my dear,” Rose said kindly.
“In a book, yes,” I said. “In real life, I’m not sure cornering a murderer is going to work out well for us.”
“There’s safety in numbers. There are seventeen of us. Eighteen counting Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth. I nearly told her to save her strength.
Sally rushed on, “Not to mention all the people Vanessa employs.”
I said, “And yet, taking all those people into account, Vanessa is still past tense.”
Rose drained her tumbler and reached for the bottle of Glenmorangie before it passed her by. “Maybe Sal has a point. There’s no reason we can’t do some preliminary groundwork. It will make their job easier for the police.”
“Rose, do you remember what happened to you the last time you played amateur sleuth?” I inquired.
Her cheeks grew pink. “That was make-believe.”
“None of us will sleep a wink tonight,” Sally insisted. “We may as well do something useful.”
Everyone began to talk at once.
Everyone but Yvonne. “I’m going to bed.” She pushed back her chair. “I’m exhausted and this conversation is idiotic.” She rose. Ben rose too, but that was just good manners.
Elizabeth said, “You’d better take one of the candelabras.”
Yvonne picked up one of the candelabras. The flames threw wild shadows against the wall as she stared at us. Ben sat down and scrubbed his face with his hands. He looked truly exhausted.
“That could be significant.” Rose pointed at Yvonne. “If anyone refuses to take part, that might mean something.”
“It means I’ve had more than enough of all of you,” Yvonne said.
“Might I make another suggestion?” Elizabeth said. “Lock your door and don’t leave your room until breakfast.”
“Thank you,” Yvonne said. “I have no intention of leaving my room until the boat arrives to take us back to the mainland.” She walked from the room.
In the silence that followed, Edie said, “Maybe Sally’s right. If someone here did commit murder, he—”
“Or she,” Sally said, eyeing the doorway through which Yvonne had disappeared.
I said, “Is not going to take kindly to being outed.”
Vance burst out, “You do understand that it’s one of us, right? One of us killed her? Someone sitting at this table killed her.”
“Shut up,” Trevor told him.
Vance stared. “Shut up?”
“Yes. Shut up. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
There were protests and indignation—not about Vance making a fool of himself, but at the idea one of us was a killer—but the objections faded out to a few mutters and comments. There were a few suspicious glances cast as we finished our drinks, and, not long after, we collected our candlesticks and retired to our rooms.
It was a relief to close my door behind me. I set my candlestick on the dresser, locked the door and leaned back against it, studying the room. By daylight it had seemed quaint but cozy. By candlelight, it was definitely creepy. The glass eyes of the mounted raven glittered.
Sally said her room had a portrait with moving eyes, and the Poe sisters said their room had a secret panel that led into a larger closet.
I checked my phone but there were no messages, no texts. That was most likely due to the storm, but I hoped John was all right. It would have been great to hear his voice. Even a text would have meant something.
How was it possible that I missed John after four days as much as I had missed Trevor after three years?
Probably part of why I missed him was I was scared and feeling out of my depth, and that always goes better with company.
Not that I thought anyone was coming after me, but all the same I didn’t expect to do much sleeping that night. I stretched out on the bed to think.
Someone tapped softly on my door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I got off the bed and went to answer the knock.
I thought I knew who would be standing on the other side, so it was a surprise to see Nedda in the hallway, wrapped in a green-and-brown-striped flannel bathrobe.
“Can I speak to you?” she asked softly.
“Sure,” I said. I moved aside. Nedda waved to Wally, who—candlestick held aloft—was watching us from the doorway of their room. He nodded, retreating and closing the door.
I shut the door after her. Nedda gazed at me as though trying to make up her mind.
“She was murdered, wasn’t she?” I said quietly.
Nedda’s voice was barely above a whisper. “There was a tiny puncture mark on the back of her neck, beneath her hair. My best guess? Someone jabbed her with a hypo when her back was turned.”
I swallowed. “She was poisoned?” It’s one thing to suspect. It’s another to have your worst fear confirmed.
“It’ll take an autopsy to determine. But that’s my thought. Yes. She was probably injected with a powerful, fast-acting sedative such as gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.”
“Vanessa used GHB in Little Boy Dead.”
“Yes. I remember. That’s one reason I thought of it. Not only does it take effect very quickly, it disappears from the bloodstream after twelve hours.”
“Twelve hours. Then it’s probably already too late for the drug to show up in an autopsy.”
“Yes. The injection site will show up though.” She showed me the photo on her iPhone. There was nothing inherently dreadful about that image of a discolored mark on the nape of someone’s neck. It was only knowing that the neck was Vanessa’s and that she was dead that made me feel queasy.
I said, “In theory it’s a prescription drug, but you don’t have to be a doctor to get hold of GHB. It’s used for everything from date rape to fitness training.”
“I won’t ask how you know that.”
“Research is my life.” For once I wasn’t kidding.
“You also don’t need to be a doctor to use a hypodermic needle. Not the way that was done. There wasn’t any finesse about it. Anyone could have done it.”
“But anyone didn’t do it,” I said. “Vance was right about that. It’s someone from our group. It has to be.”
Nedda looked worried. “I suppose so. I suppose it couldn’t be...”
“What? A fan angry that she ended the MacKinnon series? A reviewer irate about being left off her ARC list? A rival mystery author?”
Actually, given that Vanessa’s motive for killing Kresley was supposed to have been jealousy over his winning a writing prize she believed should have been hers, maybe that wasn’t so off.
“John was a cop, wasn’t he? I suppose he did really leave the island?”
I said hotly, “He’s an insurance investigator. John had nothing to do with it. And yes, he did really leave the island. I watched him go myself.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Nedda said. “We could use a cop right about now.”
“Oh.” I unbent a little. “Right.”
She looked faintly amused. “John didn’t have any part in this. He barely knew who Vanessa was when he joined the tour. This isn’t a random crime. And it wasn’t an impulse.”
“No. It was premeditated. Someone had to bring the drug and the hypodermic needle with them.”
“Exactly. Everyone but John booked the tour nearly two years ago. Someone has been waiting a long time for this.”
“It doesn’t have to be someone on the tour,” I said. “It sounded to me like when Vanessa bought this island, she forced nearly everyone already living here out. That could have caused some hard feelings.”
“That was how many years ago? Why would someone wait so long for revenge?”
“Mayb
e it’s not about revenge,” I said. “It could be murder for gain. This island must be worth a fortune. Vanessa’s literary estate must be worth a fortune.”
Nedda shook her head. “I don’t think so. Alison told me the island was on the market for years before Vanessa purchased it.”
“Okay. That still leaves her personal wealth. Her literary estate. Book royalties, film royalties. All those translations. That’s got to be some pretty significant earnings. Who inherits?”
“She’s left everything to charity.”
I stared at Nedda. “How do you know that?”
“I read about her charity work years ago, and Elizabeth confirmed it. Vanessa is a major contributor to a charity devoted to rehabilitating violent youthful offenders. According to her will, this island and everything else goes to that organization.”
“Then it’s got to be something in her past,” I said.
Of course, the most obvious thing in Vanessa’s past was the incident that had made her infamous.
Nedda confirmed my thoughts. “Donald Kresley. That’s what Wally thinks too. I’m not so sure. Not this late after the fact. Vanessa lived a long life and I’m guessing made more than a few enemies along the way. There could be a motive for killing her that would never occur to us.”
She had a point. Vanessa had spent almost thirty years as a free woman after getting out of prison. If someone wanted revenge for the murder of Donald Kresley, why wait decades? Why allow Vanessa to live out her life getting richer and more famous? That was a pretty lackadaisical approach to vengeance.
I said, “I think you were right to hide the fact you believe Vanessa’s death was murder.”
Nedda grimaced. “For all the good it did. Everyone in the group believes she was murdered. What scares me is if the killer is someone in our group, to have committed such a crime indicates a seriously deranged psyche. To have taken such a risk...” She shook her head.
I understood her worry. To have acted so boldly, meant someone was either desperate or crazy. And having succeeded once, anyone that bold might be willing to strike again, particularly if they feared their own safety was in jeopardy.
I said, “Well, the fact that our crew is already running with the idea takes the heat off you. Besides, anyone who reads Vanessa knows all about forensic evidence. They’re going to know that shutting you up wouldn’t change the results of the autopsy.”