I had a theory that Heather hadn’t told a soul about it, except perhaps her own doctor. Someone as mean and cutthroat as Heather wouldn’t have wanted something like that to be common knowledge, based on the mere fact that any enemy who knew she could be killed by the smallest amount of tonic water could’ve easily spiked her drink or her food and gotten away with murder.
In fact, that’s exactly what I suspected happened. And though Carmen hadn’t seen anyone carrying around a small bottle of tonic, it didn’t mean that someone didn’t sneak one into the party, hidden in her purse, and empty the contents into my punch sometime after Carmen had taste-tested it to ensure it was safe for Heather to drink.
When I thought about it, it was actually a perfect little murder: neat, tidy, and no sign of a smoking gun.
These were my thoughts as I walked across the pavement to where Shepherd was holding open the door to a café called Eddy’s 80’s.
When I entered, I realized what half the name must mean: the whole place was devoted to nostalgia of the eighties. There were framed photographs of high school yearbook photos, featuring young men with mullets and tails, and young women with high bangs, shoulder pads, and extra-glossy lipstick.
Movie posters dedicated to Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink lined one wall, and the jukebox played Tears for Fears.
“Cool,” I said. Although I’d been young, I’d loved the eighties.
“This place is one of my favorites,” Shepherd said. Pointing to a booth covered in turquoise vinyl, he allowed me to sit first before joining me and handing over a menu.
I skimmed the first page and asked, “So, what’s up, Detective.”
“I’ve been given a hot tip about the murder of Heather Holland.”
“Oh?” I said, as casually as I could. It wouldn’t do to look overly interested, not when Shepherd had ordered me to butt out.
“It came in this morning about a minute after I got to my desk,” he said. He paused when the waitress stopped by our table with a hot coffeepot and asked to take my order.
“I’d like the crèpes, please,” I said. “Extra lemon.”
“Good choice,” Shepherd said. “I’ll have my usual, Cathy.”
“You got it, chief,” she said, with a wink as she headed off.
“You order the same dish at every restaurant you go to?”
Shepherd stirred some cream into his coffee. “I do. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a guy who likes surprises.”
“Which is no surprise,” I kidded.
“Ha,” he said flatly. “Anyway, you can imagine how much I didn’t like it when I got to work and was greeted with this surprise tip that really threw a monkey wrench into the Heather Holland murder case.”
I leaned in. “What’s the tip?”
Shepherd paused to take a sip from his coffee. “Mmm, that’s good coffee. Have you tried it yet?”
“Just get to the point, man!” I snapped. He was purposely teasing me, and my patience for it had waned.
He smiled. “The point, or rather the tip, was that someone spotted a red Mini Cooper parked on the side of the road last night, next to the wooded section of Heather Holland’s estate.”
Uh oh, I thought.
“This same witness also swore they saw three people coming out of Heather Holland’s house, headed toward the Mini Cooper.”
“Weird!” When in doubt, feign surprise.
Shepherd took another swig of coffee. “Yeah. Major coincidence given you have a red Mini Cooper registered in your name, right?”
“Oh, please, there are tons of those cars around here.”
“Three, actually.”
“Excuse me?”
“There are three. Exactly three red Mini Coopers in this part of the Hamptons.”
“Wow, I would’ve thought there’d be a ton more. It’s a fun little car.”
“If you’re looking for a fun red car around here, you’d have to go with a Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, or even a Tesla Roadster.”
“I love those cars. I’m thinking of getting one, you know. If I do, I’ll let you take it for a test drive.”
“You really gonna ignore the fact that I know it was you who was out at Heather’s place last night?”
I did my best to appear taken aback. “Me? You can’t be serious, Detective. I was at home all evening.”
“Yep. I knew you were,” he said, looking relieved.
I didn’t buy it for a second and felt my heart rate tick up.
“Well, except for that visit to my sister, right?”
Gulp.
“And that was . . . what? About forty-five minutes before a car similar to yours was seen in front of Heather’s and three people were spotted moving toward the car.”
“If it looked so suspicious, why didn’t this witness call it in at the time he saw the three people leaving Heather’s?” I said tartly.
“Because this good Samaritan didn’t want to . . . and I’m going to quote him, ‘stir up trouble,’ so he slept on it and finally decided to phone it in this morning.”
“How about I just plead the fifth on this one?” I asked.
Shepherd opened his mouth to reply but was once again interrupted by the waitress, who set down a plate of crèpes for me and some sort of gorgeous-looking omelet for Shepherd.
After she left, Shepherd took up his fork and said, “Who was the third person, Catherine?”
“I can’t tell you,” I said.
“You have to be kidding me.”
“Wish I was. But I made a promise, and I’m going to keep it.”
Shepherd squinted at me, and then he seemed to connect the dots. “Carmen?”
I don’t know how he guessed it—skills like that usually only come from my sister. “I can’t tell you,” I repeated.
Shepherd shook his head and rubbed his face. He then jabbed his fork angrily into his omelet and sawed off a large piece. “You’re killing me, you know that?”
“It’s not my intention to kill anyone, Detective.”
Shepherd chewed his food and glared at me. “You have to bring her in.”
“I made a promise. I can’t.”
“She’s in danger, Catherine!” he yelled, dropping his fork in anger. Several people in the café looked over at us.
“She’s safe,” I replied. “She feels that if she came in, she’d be in even greater danger.”
“The assassin’s after her.”
“Actually, her name is the Angel of Death.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“No. That’s what a certain person told me her handle was.”
“What else do you know?”
“A great deal,” I admitted.
Shepherd crumpled up his napkin and threw it on the table, clearly pissed off. “So this whole time you’ve been holding out on me?”
“No. I’ve only been holding out on you for about the past twenty-four hours. Ever since you decided our collaboration was over.”
Shepherd sighed. “So it’s my fault.”
“Great of you to admit it,” I said with a smile.
He shook his head. “Seriously, you’re killing me.”
Feeling a bit sorry for him, I decided to tell him what I knew. “Heather was allergic to quinine.”
He eyed me sharply. “Quinine? Like the active ingredient in tonic water?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“Your sister.”
“My sister told you Heather was allergic to quinine,” he said doubtfully.
“No. She told me about a slumber party she attended with Heather when they were young girls. At the party, Heather was having severe leg cramps, and the girl hosting the party knew that her mother took pills to relieve leg cramps, so she got one for Heather, and Heather’s reaction to the pills put her in the hospital.”
“What does any of that have to do with quinine?”
“Quinine pills were used pretty exten
sively in the past as a cure for leg cramps.”
“So what you have is a suspicion, not an actual fact.”
“Yes,” I said, “but I believe you can confirm it. When Heather sent over the recipe to me for the punch I made her for the party, she was very specific that I should follow the ingredients exactly as written. Which I did. Later, Gilley found the same recipe for the punch I made online, but that online recipe called for tonic water—not Sprite, as Heather had written it for me to make.
“I also had a conversation with . . . someone who told me that Heather had told her that she was allergic to tonic water. It’s my theory that someone else at that party knew of or had discovered Heather’s severe reaction to quinine and spiked the punch.”
Shepherd stared at me with a doubtful expression, but then his brow rose, and he retrieved his cell phone. After tapping at the screen, he put it to his ear and said, “McDaniel, it’s Shepherd. Listen, I need someone in your lab to read me the ingredients we retrieved from the liquid in the punch bowl. Yeah, I’ll wait.”
I ate my crèpes while Shepherd waited for McDaniel to come back on the line. “These are delicious,” I said to him.
He rolled his eyes. A minute later, he said, “Yeah, I’m here. Uh huh, . . . uh huh, . . . yeah, okay, got it. Now I need you to do me another favor. I need you to dig around into Heather Holland’s medical records. Search for any indication that she was allergic to quinine. And pass that info on to Beauperthy and ask if the way in which she died is consistent with quinine poisoning. Thanks.”
After hanging up, Shepherd dug into his omelet again.
“Well?” I asked him when he didn’t offer up any information.
After wiping his mouth with his napkin, he said, “Quinine was present in the punch. A fair amount of it too, actually.”
“I knew it!” I said.
“What else do you know?” he pressed.
I shrugged lightly and focused on my crèpes. “I don’t think I can comment further, even though I do know something very interesting. I mean, if you truly want me to butt out, then even when I have information, I don’t see how I can share it with you without being accused of overstepping.”
Shepherd pulled my plate away. “Hey,” he said to get my attention. I looked up. “This is me asking you to butt in, okay?”
I dipped my chin in assent. “Good. Because I would’ve hated to have withheld this next bit. It seems there was an encounter over Heather’s body not long after she passed away.”
“Encounter? Explain, please.”
“Carmen got up close and personal with the Angel of Death, which is one of the reasons why the assassin is after Carmen. She saw her up close.”
“So did you,” Shepherd said.
“Yes, which is why I’m being extra cautious these days. Anyway, Carmen heard a loud crash and came running to find the assassin standing over Heather, with shards of the punch bowl lying all around her. Carmen assumed the assassin had just killed her, and, in turn, the assassin assumed it was Carmen who’d killed Heather. Which is the second reason the Angel of Death is after the housekeeper.”
Shepherd opened his mouth to comment, but I held up my hand.
“Wait,” I said. “Just let me finish. The Angel of Death took a shot at Carmen. You’ll find the bullet in the bookcase next to the door. Carmen managed to flee unharmed to Father Stephan’s church, where she hid in the basement and called her sister. As it happens, Sasha worked for someone, as Carmen put it, important to a certain crime family. Sasha was able to glean that a mark had been placed on Heather’s head—just like we suspected—and the Angel of Death was trying to collect when she was foiled by someone else. Word got back to the crime family, and they refused to pay the Angel, suggesting that the money should go to Carmen, who they think murdered Heather. The Angel, in turn, tracked Carmen down to the church and killed Father Stephan—probably because she was convinced he knew where she was and was hiding her. Carmen escaped into her sister’s car in the nick of time.
“The assassin then did her homework, discovered where Sasha lived, tracked her down, and killed her. Maybe she thought she was Carmen, maybe she wanted to kill Sasha as a way to punish Carmen out of revenge—I don’t really know. Carmen witnessed the murder but managed to escape again; out of options, she fled to Heather’s, hoping to hide out for a few days. Heather’s house is where we discovered her and decided to help.”
“How’d you get into Heather’s house?” he asked.
“I’m afraid to answer that on the grounds that it could incriminate me.”
Shepherd sighed. “How about this one time I pinkie-swear not to file a B and E against you?”
“That’d be swell.”
“So how’d you get into Heather’s?”
“When Gilley and I were directed to the back of Heather’s house to bring in the punch, Gilley remembered tripping over a rock, and when he bent down to toss it out of the way, he realized it was one of those fake rocks you hide a key in. All we had to do was go back and find the rock.” I was lying, of course, but the truth would’ve incriminated Gilley and me of more than a B and E.
“How’d you get past the alarm? We had the alarm company set it remotely after we were done gathering our evidence.”
“Gilley guessed that it would be something simple, like our zip code or area code. He tried the area code digits and it worked,” I said, thinking fast.
“Huh,” Shepherd said. “That’s a pretty lucky guess.”
“Gilley is quite a lucky man.”
Shepherd nodded, and I was grateful that he bought the explanation. “So where is Carmen now?”
“I can’t tell you that, and I won’t tell you that. But she is somewhere safe, and yes, I realize you could haul me off to jail for harboring a fugitive, but Carmen didn’t hurt anyone. She worked for Heather for seventeen years, and she looked out for her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, the second I arrived with the punch, Carmen insisted on taste-testing it so that she knew it was free of tonic water. No way would she have cared what I put in it if she intended to poison Heather.”
“So who killed Heather?” Shepherd said.
“That I don’t know. Yet. But I think there might be a way to find out.”
“Do tell.”
“I need to see the invitation list that Heather sent out.”
“I have that. I can print you out a copy.”
“And I’ll also need another word with your sister.”
“What does Sunny have to do with it?”
I smiled. “She’s our star witness, Detective.”
* * *
An hour later, I was in Shepherd’s car, pulling up to Sunny’s house. We’d already heard back from the medical examiner. Heather’s primary-care physician confirmed that she had a severe allergy to quinine. She’d experienced two close calls with it in her life; once when she was a young girl at a sleepover, and another time when she was traveling in Europe as a college student and had been given a drink at a party mixed with tonic water.
That incident had nearly killed her.
Heather’s doctor also confirmed that she had been very reluctant to share the news of her allergy with anyone. Not even her husband.
Sunny answered her brother’s knock looking tired and pale. “Hey, Stevie,” she said when she saw him.
“Bun-bun?” he said, reaching for her arm. “Are you okay?”
She smiled weakly. “Yeah. The baby kept me up all night kicking up a storm. I swear he’s destined to be a soccer champion.” Noticing me for the first time, she said, “Oh! Hi, Catherine. I didn’t see you there. Come on in, you two.”
Sunny turned, and Shepherd held the door open for me. As I passed him, I whispered, “Bun-bun?”
His complexion turned a shade of pink, and he quickly explained, “My mom’s pet name for her was Bunny, like Sunny-bunny. That morphed into Bun-bun.”
“Uh huh,” I said, smiling wickedly. “It’s very cute.
Especially when you say it.”
“Cut me a break, okay? She’s my twin. We’re close.”
I chuckled and headed toward Sunny’s bright white kitchen. She was already at the stove, putting the kettle on and reaching for a set of mugs. “The UPS man just delivered some lavender tea. I’ve been dying to try this blend. It smells heavenly,” she said, opening a purple tin and holding it out for me to smell.
I took a whiff. “Oh, my,” I said, closing my eyes to savor the scent. “That’s heaven.”
“I’m hoping it’ll settle both me and the baby down,” she said. Then she nodded toward her brother and added, “And judging by those dark circles under your eyes, I’m going to send you home with some of this to help you sleep tonight, Steve.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I can take a few sleepless nights.”
Sunny ignored her brother and put a few spoonfuls of the loose-leaf tea into a baggie. She handed it to him with a stern look, and he took it with a grateful smile.
“So, what brings the two of you by?” she asked, back at the cupboard to get the honey.
“We’re here to ask you more about that sleepover,” I said.
Sunny’s brow furrowed. “Sleepover?”
“Yes, you remember. The one where you said Heather was given some pills for her leg cramps?”
“Ahh, yes,” she said. “God, that was thirty years ago!”
“Do you remember everyone who was there?” I asked.
“Do I . . . ? What do you mean?”
“Well, the thing of it is, Sunny, almost no one knew that Heather had a dangerous allergy to quinine, which was very likely the active ingredient in the pills she was given.”
Shepherd jumped in with, “Quinine can kill a person if that person has a sensitivity to it. The M.E. has confirmed that quinine was present in the liquid found in Heather’s stomach. We think she ingested it through the punch that Catherine brought to the party.”
Sunny’s eyes bugged wide. “So you inadvertently killed Heather?”
I shook my head vigorously. “No. Not me. I used Sprite, just like the directions called for, and Carmen, Heather’s housekeeper, even taste-tested the punch before allowing it to be served at the party. Someone else spiked the punch, and since Heather had told almost no one about her allergy, we think that someone at that party knew about it by some other means—like from a slumber party she attended when she was a young girl.”
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