Charlotte and Ray had met about six months ago, when she and Rupert had found a small white dog running loose on the village green. Unsure if it was lost or abandoned, but certain it was in distress, Charlotte had offered it a few of Rupert’s dog treats, and not knowing what else to do, she had taken the dog to the nearby police station. Ray had seemed very interested in the dog’s welfare and promised he would make sure the little fellow was cared for. He’d taken Charlotte’s name and address for his report and two days later, when he just happened to be driving by the hotel, had dropped in to let her know the microchipped dog had been reunited with his relieved owner.
“Did he spend the night at the vet’s?” Charlotte asked.
Ray shook his head and gave her a sheepish grin. “I think he found my sofa quite comfortable.”
Charlotte laughed, and after a few minutes of easy conversation, Ray had invited her to meet for a coffee. They’d discovered they shared a love of films, especially 1940s and ’50s noir, and really good coffee.
Ray had moved to Walkers Ridge from Pennsylvania. He’d applied for the police chief job as a career move, but he was also looking for a fresh start following an amicable divorce. Meeting Charlotte had been an unexpected bonus.
“Something happened at the hotel today,” Charlotte said, after she’d settled into the chair across from his desk, with Rupert lying at her feet. “It may be nothing, but I thought you should know.” She described finding Lauren barely conscious in her bedroom, how the ambulance had been called, and finished up by telling him that a hospital nurse had told Harvey Jacobs that an overdose of some kind was suspected.
“Overdose?” Ray asked.
“They aren’t sure yet what’s wrong with her. Still running tests, apparently. But you know, when I saw her, I wondered if it might be something like that. She was so unresponsive—exactly like what you read about in the papers when someone has overdosed.”
“Did they say what kind of drug she might have taken?”
Charlotte shook her head. “If the nurse told him, Harvey didn’t say. I suppose it could be something she took by mistake, but when you hear ‘drug overdose,’ you tend to think the worst, don’t you?”
“You do.” He thought for a moment. “Look, just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll take a run over to the hospital and see what’s going on. I’d send Phil, but he’s out on a call. Will you be home later? I’ll phone you.”
Charlotte gathered up Rupert and stood up. “That would be great. I’d love to know what you find out. If you can tell me, that is.”
“I’ll tell you what I can,” he replied as he also stood up. “Now, would you two like a ride home? It’s on my way.”
“No, we’re fine. We want to complete our walk, don’t we, Rupert?” The corgi raised his head slightly when he heard his name. Charlotte smiled at him and then turned to Ray. “Why don’t I pick up a few groceries, and if you don’t have other plans, you could come by later and we can talk over dinner.”
“Sounds great. I’ll call you and let you know when I’m on my way.”
Half an hour later, pleasantly out of breath, Charlotte let herself and Rupert into their bungalow, set down her small bag of shopping, peeled off her dog-walking clothes, and headed for the shower. Ten minutes later, wrapped in a fluffy white towel with another one on her head, turban style, she made her way to her bedroom. She chose clean, comfortable pants and a green and white striped Ralph Lauren top that she’d bought on sale at a discount outlet. She was halfway to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner when her phone rang. It was Ray, telling her he’d be there in about forty-five minutes.
She put out Rupert’s dinner and then seasoned the chicken breasts and put them in the oven while she prepared potatoes. Ray liked old-fashioned, plain cooking, and although she enjoyed good food, she wasn’t much into cooking anymore. Keeping things simple suited her just fine.
This bungalow on the grounds of Jacobs Grand Hotel had been her home for the past ten years. It was small, but it suited her perfectly, reminding her of the old tied cottages that used to house workers on great English estates. The only difference was that she paid Harvey Jacobs a fair market-value rent.
She’d placed her table in front of the sitting-room window, with its beautiful view of the local river. The natural light was good, and although she rarely brought work home, if she had some detailed stitching to do, it was in front of this window that she did it.
The summer season at Jacobs Grand Hotel kept her busy, but in the downtime of winter, she supplemented her income by creating costumes for New York productions on a short-term contract basis. It was easy enough to catch the bus that picked up passengers at the village green and continued on, stopping at small towns along the way, all the way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal at Forty-Second Street. She loved days out in New York, the hustle of the city, the romance of the theater district, and the drive of the fashion district.
She finished setting the table, and a few minutes later, as Rupert’s barking warned of an approaching vehicle, she lit a couple of candles. Footsteps crunched across the gravel, and she opened the door for Ray, letting in a cool blast of fresh spring evening air.
After kissing her, he took off his coat and went to wash his hands in the kitchen sink.
“Are you off duty now for the rest of the evening?” she asked over the sound of running water. He nodded. “Hungry?” He nodded again as he hung up the towel. “Like a glass of wine?”
“That sounds good,” he replied.
“Dinner should be ready in a few minutes.” She handed him a glass of white wine and sat beside him on the couch, tucking one leg under her as she turned toward him.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Well, the good news is that Lauren has regained consciousness and is breathing on her own, but they wouldn’t let me speak to her. She’s not quite out of the woods yet but headed in the right direction. It was very lucky you found her when you did. The doctor said even five or ten minutes later and the outcome would most likely have been very different.”
“Do they know what she took?”
“They did a tox screen but haven’t got the results back yet. I hope to know more when we’re able to talk to her.”
“Now it’s your turn to tell me,” he said. “You said you thought something didn’t seem quite right when you found Lauren. What did you mean by that?”
“She seemed so limp and well, just out of it. I wondered if she’d taken something.”
“A suicide attempt, you mean?”
Charlotte nodded. “I had a cousin who tried to kill herself. My aunt found her passed out, and what she described looked a lot like Lauren.”
She glanced at Rupert lying beside them and then bent over and gave the fur on his back a friendly rub.
“But I wouldn’t have thought Lauren was the type to try to commit suicide. Of course, you can never really know what’s going on in someone’s mind, but she didn’t seem depressed or unhappy to me. Quite the opposite, in fact. She seemed very confident that she was on her way to bigger and better things.”
“But suicide attempts aren’t always what they seem,” Ray said. “Sometimes people do it to attract attention or to send a message to someone. You know—‘If you break up with me, I’ll kill myself, and you’ll be sorry.’”
Charlotte glanced up at him.
“I offered to ride in the ambulance to the hospital with Lauren,” she remarked as she straightened up, “but the paramedic said only family can do that. It occurred to me that Lauren didn’t take anything with her, so I thought I’d go back to her room tonight and choose a few items that she’ll need while she’s in hospital. A bit of makeup, her own nightdress, that sort of thing.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Ray. “I’m sure she’d appreciate your thoughtfulness. We can walk over together after dinner.”
The oven timer dinged to let them know the chicken was done. Charlotte mashed the potatoes, and they worked together to plate the meal. Charlotte closed the curtains against the night while Ray set the plates on the table and Rupert kept a close eye on everything.
Ray looked thoughtful as he piled mashed potatoes on his fork.
“Do you know if her room is locked now?” he asked.
“It wasn’t locked this morning when I found her, but I don’t know if someone locked the door after she was taken to hospital.”
He helped himself to a few more buttered carrots.
*
“This is her room, number fifteen here on the right,” Charlotte said in a stage whisper as the two made their way along the hotel’s second-floor corridor. They tried the door, and it opened. After closing it softly behind them and locking it, Ray flicked on the light switch by the door and then pulled a small a flashlight out of his pocket and shone it around the room.
“You’d be surprised how much better you can see with one of these, even with overhead lighting,” he said in response to Charlotte’s quizzical look. The beam picked out the details of small things on the dresser: a little cut-glass dish containing a couple of pairs of dangly silver earrings and two quarters, a photo of a dark-haired woman holding a small dog, and several hair clips.
“It’s just the bedroom, is it?” he asked. “No bathroom?”
“She’d have used the communal one down the hall,” Charlotte said. She opened a bureau drawer and flipped through a few neatly folded sweaters and selected one.
She picked up a cell phone on the bedside table and showed it to Ray, who nodded.
“I’m sure she’d be glad to have that. What else do you think she’d like?”
“Probably some underclothes, sleepwear, toiletries, makeup. When she’s feeling better, she’ll definitely want to tidy herself up a bit. Oh, and we’d better send some street clothes so she’ll have something clean to wear home. Jeans and a sweater. And maybe a—”
“Where’s her purse?” Ray interrupted. “We haven’t seen her purse. Where would she be likely to keep it?”
“Could the ambulance people have picked it up and taken it with them?”
“Possibly, if there was time. Though I expect the paramedics’ priority was preparing her for transport and getting her on her way as soon as possible.”
Charlotte opened the door of the small closet and checked the floor. “It’s not here. Usually a woman sets it down someplace where it’s easy to get at, so you’d expect it to be beside the little table or maybe by the bed or on the table.” She pointed to a small table, painted white, with a straight-backed, uncomfortable-looking chair in front of it.
“I’ll call the hospital and ask the nurse to check for it. Her room’s been left unlocked, so we want to make sure her bag hasn’t been stolen,” said Ray.
He surveyed the room with an experienced eye.
“Well, I don’t think there’s anything more to see here. Doesn’t look as if anything’s out of place. Let’s just gather up a few things for her and be on our way.”
Charlotte took a closer look at the rumpled bed where she had found Lauren. The bedding gave off a sour smell, and she thought she saw a damp patch on the coverlet.
“Ray, this bed needs changing. We can’t leave it like that. It should be nice for her when she returns. I’ll ask the housekeeper to take care of it tomorrow.”
Charlotte lifted the pillow to reveal a pair of pajama bottoms printed with a pink sheep pattern and a pink T-shirt.
“There’s a bag on the floor of her closet that’s probably for laundry. We’ll put these in there and see if we can find another bag to use for the things we want to bring to the hospital.” As she picked up the nightclothes, something fell to the floor. She bent over and retrieved a bright red box with the name “Garrard” on it.
“Oh my,” she said, turning to Ray and showing him the box. “Look at this.”
“It’s a Garrard jewelry box.” She snapped the lid open to reveal a ring set with a large blue stone surrounded by what looked like diamonds. She held it out to him, and he shone his flashlight on it as he peered at it. “If this is real, it’s worth thousands,” she said. “The box isn’t new, though. You can see it’s a little faded and frayed around the edges. This could be an heirloom or auction piece.”
“Now where would Lauren get something like that?”
Charlotte thought for a moment. “I think it’s likely this was a gift. I certainly can’t see her buying something like this for herself, can you? How could she possibly afford it? And as Garrard was the royal jeweler for centuries, I’d say this was almost certainly a gift from a British admirer.”