I finally lowered the phone and turned around. While I expected to find Nelle and Electra in the same place where I left them, they’d disappeared. The only reminder of our talk was an overturned champagne flute on the floor.
I’d missed the chance to tell Nelle about Lance. So I left the room as well, anxious to find her and send her to Lance. If I couldn’t do that, at least I could tell Lance about our conversation with Electra.
Silence engulfed me again as I moved through the hall. Gone was the laughter that characterized the morning; the happy chitchat and excited hubbub. It gave way to an oppressive quiet that had me tiptoeing all the way to the foyer. If people were out and about this morning, I couldn’t see them, and it stayed that way until I reached the front room.
Finally, I spied someone standing by the entrance. “Hi, Darryl.”
He quickly turned, but his face looked troubled.
“Is something wrong?”
He indicated a package in his hand. It was a gift-wrapped box, covered in shiny silver paper and tied with a velvet bow.
“Well, that’s pretty. Who’s it from?”
“I don’ know,” he finally said. “Someone done sent it ta dat boy.”
“Wesley?” I glanced down and noticed the gift came with no card. Someone had scrawled Wesley’s name on the wrapping but forgot to include a note. “I wonder who it’s from?”
“I gots no idea,” he said.
“Maybe you should give it to the bride, then. But you might want to wait a little. She probably doesn’t want to see anything like that right now.”
“It’s not fer her.” Darryl eyed the package protectively. “Someone wants it ta reach da boy.”
“Then why don’t you give it to Lance? He’ll know what to do with it.” As a matter of fact, I intended to find Lance myself, so maybe I could spare Darryl the trouble. “Or you can just hand it over to me. I need to speak with Lance anyway.”
“Okay, den.” Darryl shrugged and gave me the box.
It was heavy, and about the size of a toaster. I cradled it in my arms as I stepped past him and moved away from the foyer.
The shiny silver paper winked at me as I walked. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to wrap the package, but why didn’t he or she include a gift tag? I mulled that over as I walked, and before long, I arrived at the kitchen.
Lance stood near it, with his head bent low over his notebook.
“Hey there, Lance.”
He glanced up from his notes. “I thought you were going to find the mother-of-the-bride for me.”
“I was, but she slipped away before I could do that. Look at this.”
He eyed the package curiously. “What is it?”
“I have no idea.” I walked into the kitchen and laid it on the counter. “And I met Wesley Carmichael’s stepsister. I need to tell you about her. She was a real piece of work.”
“First things first.” Lance sidled up to the counter, too. “Where’d you get the gift?”
“Darryl handed it to me. It’s for Wesley.”
“Wesley?” Lance said. “That’s strange. People don’t usually send a gift to the groom.”
“Tell me about it. They usually send one to the bride’s home, or maybe they bring it to the reception.”
“There’s only one way to find out what’s in it.” Lance quickly took a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket, which he slipped over his fingers. Then he reached for the box and carefully peeled away the first layer of wrapping paper. After working his way through another layer, he unearthed a brown cardboard box sealed with strapping tape. He carefully stored the paper to one side, before he slowly peeled off the tape and opened the lid.
We both peered into the box at the same time.
“It’s a clock.” I quickly appraised the rich brown case with an elaborately scrolled base. “A beautiful clock. Why would someone send a clock to a guy on his wedding day?”
“Beats me.” Lance withdrew the clock from the box and balanced it in his hands.
The mantel clock was probably a hundred years old. The case was mahogany, like I’d thought, and a rim of gold circled the dial. Someone had removed the pendulum, and the hands pointed to six and twelve.
“What a beauty.” The details were extraordinary, including the latticework base and four filigreed feet that supported it. “It looks expensive.”
“Hm, mmm.” Lance angled the clock to the window, where it glowed in the noontime sun.
Once he finished inspecting the front of the clock, he slowly turned it over and inspected the back. All at once, he let out a long, low whistle. “Well, look at that.”
I glanced over his shoulder. Across the back of the clock, someone had scrawled a few words in black felt pen. The letters singed the wood like a lightning strike: Time’s Up.
Lance and I gaped at each other.
“Who would do that?” I finally asked. “They’ve ruined it.”
“I want to know why they did it. That’s an even better question.”
“Someone obviously had it in for Wesley.” I noticed the writing was scratchy and raw, since the back was covered in pine, instead of expensive mahogany, like the front.
“I need to get this to the lab to be fingerprinted.” Lance gently placed the clock back in its carrying case. “Then again…” his voice trailed off as he studied it.
“What?” I never knew what to expect with Lance. He often surprised me with how he handled evidence.
“I might just hold off on sending this to the station. It’d be interesting to see what people around here think about this little present.”
“Oh, I get it. You want to see if maybe someone in the wedding party sent it.”
“Bingo. It’s hard for people to deny something when you put the evidence right in front of them.”
Something rustled behind us just then, and we both turned. A medical examiner bustled into the kitchen wearing a white lab coat with a logo for the St. James Parish Medical Examiner’s Office stitched onto the pocket. Since St. James was only one parish over, I guessed it shared its employees with the parish where the wedding was to take place.
“Hello, Adaline.”
“Missy! Good to see you again.”
“You two know each other?” Lance looked surprised.
“Of course I know Missy,” Adaline said. “We’ve worked together several times.”
Since even the medical examiner knew my name, odds were good I had a penchant for finding dead bodies. But that was neither here nor there at the moment.
“I hope you’ve been well since our last visit.” The last time we spoke, Adaline had a bad case of shingles that nearly landed her in the hospital.
“I’m much better now.” Her eyebrows suddenly shot up. “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you’re the one who found the body this time, too?”
“Guilty as charged. The house’s caretaker and I went looking for the groom when he didn’t show up at breakfast this morning.”
“There was no chance of that,” she said. “The victim died last night.”
She must’ve concluded her initial investigation, which she would type up and present to Lance as an official report.
“Anything else you can tell us about the body?” Lance asked.
“You’ll get a preliminary later today. I’ll rush it.” She raked her fingers through her short, gray hair, some of which was plastered to her forehead by sweat. “It’s like a furnace out there. Not a very good day for a murder investigation, is it?”
“Did you say, ‘murder’?” Lance shot her a funny look.
“Oh, yeah. I found a second pair of footprints in some mud near the body. Too large for the victim’s, so it had to be someone else’s.”
My mind immediately flew back to my time with Darryl. Since he’d bent over the body to determine whether Wesley was still breathing or not, his rubber boots could’ve left prints in the mud. “Say, Adaline. Did the prints have smooth soles, or rough?”
“They looked smooth,” she said. “No indentations. Why?”
“Because I thought they might belong to the caretaker. He was with me when we found the body. But his boots had treads on the bottom.”
“Then they’re not his prints,” she said, matter-of-factly. “These prints were smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
“Let me get this straight,” Lance slowly crossed his arms. “There’s no way the man’s death was an accident, then?”
“None at all. Someone either killed him in the tower or brought him there afterward. Either way, there was another person involved.”
I knew why Lance had asked. Up until now, we could all pretend that maybe Wesley’s death didn’t involve foul play. There was no chance of that now, though.
“Another person was involved in what?”
A woman spoke up behind us, and her voice sounded shaky and weak.
I turned to see Lorelei standing in the entrance to the kitchen. A messy ponytail splayed over one shoulder, thick and matted, and her eyes looked glassy. It seemed she’d just gotten out of bed, or maybe she needed to be there.
“Ummm…” Even Lance didn’t know what to say.
“Well? Aren’t you going to tell me?”
Finally, Lance regained his composure. “We have some bad news about your fiancé. About how he died.”
“Oh? I thought it was an accident, right?”
The medical examiner started to say something, but Lance silenced her by raising his hand.
“First of all. I think you should meet someone. This is Adaline Clark, with the St. James Parish Medical Examiner’s Office.”
“Thank goodness.” Lorelei breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you’re here. People are saying all kinds of terrible things about Wesley. Like how maybe he didn’t hit his head and fall down. Like how maybe someone killed him.”
She shook her head and the ponytail flew forward. “But I don’t think that’s what happened. My poor Wesley obviously took too much medicine and got confused. He probably hit his head, or maybe he fell down on the pavement. I just hope he went quickly and it wasn’t too painful.”
She gazed at Lance hopefully, waiting for him to agree with her.
“Well, I’m afraid that’s not how it happened.” Lance spoke gently, but firmly. “There’s no easy way to say this. Someone was with your fiancé when he died, so now we suspect foul play.”
“But…but that doesn’t mean anything,” she sputtered. “Maybe one of his buddies was there and the guy tried to help him after Wesley fell. Maybe he tried to get help. Did you ever think of that, Officer?” She was grasping at straws, and we all knew it.
“Miss Honeycutt.” Up until this point, Adaline had held her tongue. “I won’t have an official report until later this afternoon, but I can tell you this—off the record—that someone poisoned your fiancé. I noticed bubbling on the surface of his skin.”
“Poison?” That took the fight right out of Lorelei. “But…but I don’t know how that could be.”
“Did Wesley have any enemies you know of?” Lance asked.
“I…I guess so. I mean, doesn’t everyone?”
“I’m not talking about little squabbles.” Lance’s voice reminded firm. “I mean, did he upset someone to the point they may have wanted to kill him?”
Before she could respond, another noise reached us. But this one was loud and chaotic. Something metal crashed to the ground in the foyer, and it was followed by a string of very colorful curses.
“Could you please see what’s happening out there?” Lance asked me.
“Of course.” It was the least I could do, since he obviously wanted to speak more with Lorelei.
I practically flew into the foyer, hoping to silence the noisemaker. When I arrived, I skidded to a stop, since I encountered the last person I expected to see: Stormie Lanai, the newscaster. And she looked none too happy to see me, either.