Dosed to Death

by P. D. Workman

  “I’ll show you where,” Kenzie offered, and took Mrs. Hubbard down the hall to the room that Lorne and Pat had stayed in. The sheets hadn’t been changed, but Kenzie had no way to remedy that with the power out. Mrs. Hubbard didn’t appear to notice or to care.

  “Thank you for this, Kenzie. You’re so thoughtful.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m glad you accepted. Just lie down and rest, get as much sleep as you can. The kids might be a bit noisy when they get up, but we’ll do our best to keep them to a dull roar.”

  Mrs. Hubbard smiled. “Oh, that’s fine. I don’t mind children’s voices.”

  Maybe not when they were well-behaved children talking and playing in the distance. She might revise her position if she ended up with Mason jumping on top of her, or with both of them screaming at each other, wrestling, or fighting over a book. Kenzie helped Mrs. Hubbard into the bed and pulled the covers over her. After another murmured good night, she left, pulling the door behind her.

  63

  Good plan,” Zachary told Kenzie when she returned to the living room.

  Kenzie raised her brows in query. “What do you mean?”

  “Keeping Mrs. Hubbard close. Where we can talk to her and keep anyone else from getting access to her.”

  “Well... she might know something. And if she does... I wouldn’t want her to be the next casualty.”

  “Her and you. We don’t know how much you know that could catch the culprits either. They could come after you next, try to burn this cabin down.” Zachary’s eyes darted around the interior of the cabin. He turned to look out the window. It was getting brighter outside. Kenzie didn’t see anyone nearby, hanging around the house.

  “I don’t really know anything. Nothing that can be proven, anyway.”

  “I think...we might know enough to figure it out.”

  Kenzie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I get this feeling sometimes... when I know that I’m getting close to solving a case. When I get this feeling that I have all of the pieces to the puzzle, if I can just put them together the right way. I guess subconsciously, my brain knows I have what I need. But it can be really frustrating, if I feel like I’m at the end of a case and nothing has come together.”

  Kenzie sat down on the couch. Zachary sat beside her. His fingers tapped the arm of the couch, his knee, the back of the couch behind her, fidgeting and restless, his brain trying to unlock the clues he believed they had.

  There was the sound of a door opening, and Kenzie leaned forward to look down the hall and see what Mrs. Hubbard needed.

  It wasn’t her, but Tyrrell. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep. Kenzie had told him to keep an eye on the fire to make sure that he moved the kids if it happened to move along the treeline and endanger the cabin. So he’d probably been awake until he had seen Mr. Burknall dig the trench around the house and the fire start to burn down again.

  “I thought I heard voices.” Tyrrell looked out the window, studying the house up the hill, then sat down in one of the easy chairs. “Everything is okay? Under control?”

  Zachary nodded.

  Tyrrell stared at him, studying his face closely. “And you, bro?” He cocked his head slightly. “I expected you to be... bad.”

  Zachary took a deep breath and let it out. “My therapist... she’s talked about exposure therapy before. How if you let your brain get past the panic stage, then it will even back out, and you’ll start to adjust to... whatever the trigger is.”

  “Yeah? And you think that this,” Tyrrell made a motion toward the farmhouse, “got you past that stage?”

  “I’ve always avoided it before.” Zachary still didn’t name his fear of fire. “Even... thinking about it. If I ever started thinking back to what happened, or was around candles or some other trigger, I would go straight to panic. Try to shut down my response, but if I couldn’t, I’d go right into flashbacks and not be able to deal with it.”

  “But this time it wasn’t a candle,” Kenzie said slowly. “It was a house fire. With other people in danger, and your family close by. And you couldn’t tell yourself that it was just a flashback.”

  “I had to... deal with it. To keep everyone safe, I had to...”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll have a lot of unpacking to do with Dr. B. But she’s going to be very proud of you.”

  Zachary smiled. That shy, little-boy smile that sometimes broke through his carefully-masked emotions when he was proud of himself. He had been criticized and humiliated by so many people in his past that he rarely allowed himself to take any pride in his accomplishments. He looked down, closing his eyes and trying to compose his expression. But the hint of a smile lingered in the corners of his mouth.

  “You helped to keep everyone safe,” Kenzie told him. “It was really scary for all of us too, but you were strong.”

  He ducked his head, partly a nod of acknowledgment, and partly hiding his face, hiding behind the mask.

  “So what’s going to happen next?” Tyrrell asked. “I mean... are we even allowed to be here anymore? If there’s no one managing the place, then...?”

  “We’re still paid-up guests,” Kenzie pointed out. “We still have the staff taking care of things, even if they don’t have a... home base anymore.” She looked at Zachary. “And then there’s the food. Everything that they had stored up at the house, and their cooking facilities... they won’t exactly be able to feed the guests three meals a day anymore.”

  “We have some food here... and there are still farm animals and their feed. It won’t exactly be a feast, but there is enough to get by on, until the roads are clear. Maybe today or tomorrow the plows will be able to get through.” Zachary twisted to look out the window at the iron gray sky. “If people have seen the smoke from the fire... someone will have to investigate. We’ll be a priority now.”

  “If anyone saw the smoke. There’s no guarantee.”

  “I think the chances are pretty good. Close neighbors might have been able to see the flames too.”

  “Maybe the staff can gather some roots and berries,” Tyrrell contributed.

  Zachary and Kenzie both looked at him. Tyrrell shrugged.

  “Well, you left that wildcrafting book out. I had to stay awake, so I looked through it.”

  Kenzie smiled and nodded. “I don’t think I’m going to eat plants anyone else has gathered,” she told him. “After what happened...”

  Tyrrell shook his head. “What?”

  “The way that everyone was hallucinating and having other symptoms. I think they were dosed with Jimson weed.”

  “Jimson weed?”

  “You can look it up in the book. It’s pretty dangerous stuff.”

  Tyrrell nodded. “I’ll say!”

  Kenzie heard the emphasis in his voice. She tilted her head, looking at him. “You’ll say? You sound like... you’ve seen the effects before?”

  Tyrrell nodded. He looked from Kenzie to Zachary and made a movement that was meant to be casual, but looked jerky and self-conscious.

  “When I was drinking... you know, as a kid... I would try anything.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean anything. If you told me I could get high on Corn Flakes, I would have eaten a whole box. Huffing fumes, drinking vanilla or mouthwash, hand sanitizer, I would do it all on a dare. Not even on a dare, just on the suggestion that it might get me to a ‘higher level of consciousness.’”

  “You didn’t!” Kenzie said in horror.

  “Yeah, you bet. Anything I could get my hands on. Including Jimson weed. Locoweed. Some kid at a party... I don’t know, like... a hillbilly. He said it was the best high ever. As long as you didn’t kill yourself.”

  Zachary swore under his breath. “I can’t believe you tried it. And...?”

  Tyrrell shrugged. “I don’t remember. Every now and then, I get a little fleeting recollection of it... like deja vu. Remembering the feeling of being outside myself, flying, seeing... weird, weird stuff happening. Know
ing that I was hallucinating, but not caring. I felt... I liked it. Most people who try the stuff remember it as being a good high, if they survive. But it’s so dangerous. It’s just... do you take it again, knowing you might die the next time? The hillbilly died, and I didn’t look for another source. Seemed like it would just be asking for trouble.”

  “Thank goodness for that.” Kenzie gave a laugh of disbelief. “I feel like I should smack you just for trying it.”

  Tyrrell chuckled. “Yeah, you probably should. Wasn’t the brightest thing I ever did. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  “No, don’t,” Zachary agreed vehemently.

  The hillbilly died. Tyrrell had been lucky that hadn’t been him.

  Tyrrell was clearly embarrassed, maybe wishing that he hadn’t told them the story. He rubbed his jaw, blinking and looking up at the ceiling, trying to think of something else to say that would distract Zachary’s and Kenzie’s attention from his youthful stupidity.

  “It’s not like I cornered the market on stupid,” he reminded Zachary. “Not like I’m the only one who ever did anything that endangered my life.”

  Zachary nodded solemnly at this. He had tried to end his own life several times in the past. Kenzie hoped against hope that he never would again, and knew that she always needed to keep an eye on him and to be aware of his mental state. She couldn’t let her guard down just because of a good day or an achievement. She knew from experience that a big step forward was often followed by an even larger slide back.

  “What do you think we know?” she asked Zachary, changing the subject back to what they had been discussing before Tyrrell had shown up. “You said that you think we know enough to figure out what happened. So... like what?”

  Zachary scratched his stubbly chin. Tyrrell looked relieved to have the conversation topic move away from his stupid teenage exploits. Kenzie watched him for a moment longer, thinking about the liquor cabinet, before turning her attention back to Zachary to see what they could piece together.

  “Well. I guess first is that you know what all of the other guests were given,” Zachary said. “We followed a false trail to begin with, thinking that it was a pill or some other chemical. Rather than something like Jimson weed, that someone could gather from practically anywhere in the state.”

  “Right.” Kenzie nodded. “The symptoms, the ten D’s, all point to Jimson weed.”

  “The ten D’s?” Tyrrell repeated.

  “Delusions, dry mouth, dry hot skin, delirium, death...” Kenzie trailed off. “I can’t remember them all right now, but they fit. If it’s not Jimson weed, it’s something very close. Some other datura species, probably.”

  “Okay.”

  “And...” Kenzie turned back to Zachary. “It’s wintertime. So whoever it was couldn’t have gathered it anywhere in the state. It’s under a blanket of snow. They would have had to gather it before they came here. They had to have some kind of premeditation. Planning.”

  “Maybe it was just for personal use,” Tyrrell suggested.

  “But like you say, it’s very dangerous. There are better ways to get high more safely. Just buy some weed before coming out here. Or like Redd Flagg, bring some mushrooms.”

  The two men both nodded, agreeing.

  “So it was planned and intentional,” Kenzie asserted.

  64

  Pretty much had to be,” Zachary agreed.

  They were all quiet, thinking about that for a few minutes.

  “Then it would have to be someone on the staff,” Tyrrell said eventually. “Wouldn’t it? Who else would know everyone would be staying here?”

  “Well... not necessarily,” Kenzie disagreed. “I would assume that they were only targeting one person, even though everyone got dosed. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably,” Zachary agreed, the word slow and thoughtful.

  “And if you were only targeting one person, then you only have to know that one person will be here. You don’t have to know any of the other guests or staff.”

  “I suppose,” Tyrrell said.

  “Everyone was poisoned to hide who the actual target was,” Kenzie speculated. “If just Vance Stiller was poisoned, then we would know that it was someone who knew he would be here and had a motive for wanting to kill him.”

  “But no one was killed,” Zachary said, holding up his hand to stop her from interrupting. “Not by the Jimson weed. Dewey died the day before. And Brooke didn’t die from the Jimson weed. She died from being stabbed.”

  “That could have been planned. Maybe the Jimson weed was to cover up the fact that she was killed on purpose. Make everyone think it was just an accident due to hallucinations.”

  “Okay.” Zachary nodded and remained focused on the point. “Let’s take a minute and say that’s what happened. It’s a simple, clear-cut situation. So who would want to kill Brooke?”

  “The husband is always the first suspect,” Tyrrell offered. “That’s what they say on TV.”

  “Right,” Kenzie agreed. “And I’ve seen that, working in the ME’s office. Lots of spousal killings. Pretty common, though usually it is in a fight, a crime of passion, not pre-planned.”

  “Motive?” Zachary queried. “Jealousy? Insurance?”

  “If it was Andy Collins, then I’d go with insurance,” Tyrrell said. “That, or she had a lot of money or an asset he wanted. He marries her, she changes her will to make him her beneficiary, and then he kills her. It looks like an accident, someone off their head on a hallucinogen. Case closed, and he gets the money.”

  It was a neat package. But Kenzie wasn’t sure it was the right answer.

  “Then why burn down the farmhouse? What’s the motive for that?”

  “It was an accident,” Tyrrell suggested. “Unrelated. Someone knocked over a lantern.”

  “Burknall says not,” Kenzie said. “They’ve been without power plenty of times before. They’re used to using propane and the fireplaces and candles. It’s all normal for them and they haven’t had any accidents before.”

  “That doesn’t prevent one from happening,” Tyrrell argued. “Or... how about one of the guests goes up to the house. They want a midnight snack. They light a candle or a lantern, but they’re not used to using them and they put the candle under a towel rack. Or knock over a lantern. Or light a fire in the fireplace and forget to close the screen to keep embers from flying out.”

  Kenzie looked at Zachary. His eyes were closed. She took his hand. “You okay, Zachary?”

  She felt his pulse. It was pounding away, twice as fast as it should have been. But there was no panic in his expression. His breathing remained even.

  “I’m fine.”

  She wouldn’t normally accept that answer from him, but he probably didn’t want a big emotional discussion in front of Tyrrell, and she didn’t want to be distracted from the topic of the fire at the farmhouse. So far, Zachary was holding it together. She would have to accept that he would be able to manage the discussion of how the fire might have started.

  “Any of those are possible,” Kenzie admitted. “But do we think that it was just a coincidence? There just happened to be a fire that destroyed all of the physical evidence we still had?”

  Tyrrell shrugged, thinking about it. “Probably not.”

  “I don’t think so either. So if it were just straightforward, Andy killing Brooke for her money, then why burn down the house? What evidence were they getting rid of?”

  Zachary started to tick possibilities off on his fingers. “Any drugs or toxins in Brooke’s body. Any other marks on her—bruises, needle marks, fingerprints. Pregnancy. Trace evidence. The same with Mr. Dewey. You didn’t think that his death was related, but what if it was?” He spoke rapidly. “It could have been to hide anything in the rooms that we put them in or in the rest of the house. The cooking dishes. What ingredient was contaminated. If there was Jimson weed stored in the cellar with the other herbs. Papers belonging to Mr. Dewey or someone else in the house. Identification. Finge
rprints—both marks left behind and the fingerprints of Mr. Dewey and Brooke themselves. Were they really who they said they were?” He considered. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Pictures,” Kenzie said slowly. “Dewey had one beside his bed of him and his wife and a young man that I assume was their son. There could be other pictures that show some relationship to a guest or someone else at the Lodge.”

  “Blackmail,” Tyrrell said, sounding excited. “Could have been blackmail pictures too. Poison pen letters. Tax fraud.”

  There were so many possibilities, Kenzie started to see the hopelessness of their ever being able to figure out what evidence might have been destroyed that they had no way of knowing even existed.

  “And what if Brooke wasn’t the intended victim?” Zachary proffered. “What if she were an accidental casualty?”

  “Well... if it wasn’t intentional murder, then what was it?” Kenzie asked. “Did they mean to kill someone who didn’t die? Or did they not mean to kill anybody?”

  “Or was Mr. Dewey the intended victim?”

  “But he wasn’t—” Kenzie stopped herself. They were brainstorming. Every possibility had to be explored. What if Mr. Dewey’s death had not been accidental? What if someone had meant to kill him, and the Jimson weed poisoning the next night had just been to muddy the waters or keep everyone off-balance? Or to give the killer a chance to eliminate evidence at the house while everyone was flying high? Maybe they hadn’t been able to destroy whatever evidence they wanted to and they had resorted instead to burning the house down?

  “Okay,” she said instead. “Why kill Mr. Dewey? He’s the one who owned the Lodge, so the first obvious motivation was to acquire the Lodge. Who would have inherited it from him?”

  “The son?” Zachary suggested.

  “Maybe... I haven’t heard anyone mention him, so I don’t know if he was still around, or if he had died or been disinherited. If the Lodge didn’t go to a son, then who?”

  “If it went to one of the staff, then any of them might be the culprit,” Tyrrell said.