Dr. Bishop ran down the same laundry list of possible causes for Len’s unexpected passing as he’d mentioned to Rodriguez, adding, “I saw no signs of outward trauma other than the scratches, so chances are we will find nothing amiss. But I would prefer to be safe rather than sorry. Perhaps while I finish here you would like to question Ms. Fleet and the decedent’s family and friends about the circumstances?”
“We’ll handle it, Reverend, and keep you in the loop.”
“Excellent. As I told the crew earlier, I was on my way to my morning service when I got the call. If I hurry with the paperwork”—he paused for a glance at this watch—“I might still make it on time.”
The sheriff nodded to Mullins, who hurried over to the pastor and listened as he and Rodriguez conferred over some forms the Reverend had pulled out. Sheriff Lamb, meanwhile, strode down the steps to where Harry and I waited.
“Ms. Fleet,” she greeted me, whipping out a notepad and pen. “I wasn’t expecting to do this again with you.”
“Me neither.”
The sheriff was referring to the fact that, earlier this summer, I’d been first on the scene to find a man who lay dying in an alley on the town square. The subsequent police investigation had us crossing paths several times until what turned out to be a murder had been solved.
But, just so I don’t hog the glory, Harry had been involved, too—originally because I’d thought he was the one sprawled behind a dumpster with a carving knife in his chest. And later, because Harry had been convinced he was the intended victim, not the murdered man.
The sheriff glanced Harry’s way now, and the actor breezily greeted her. “Hi, Connie. Long time no speak.”
I knew from before that the pair had gone to high school in Cymbeline together, which was why he apparently felt he could greet her with such familiarity. The sheriff, however, wasn’t having any of that.
“Hello, Mr. Westcott. While I’m on the clock, it’s Sheriff Lamb,” she coolly reproved him. “Now I understand Ms. Fleet’s presence here, since this is her B&B. But why do you happen to be here as well?”
“I’m the troupe director for the Georgia Amateur Shakespeare Players,” was his lofty reply. “We’re staying here while we finish rehearsals for the Shakespeare festival next weekend. Though things are a bit up in the air right now about that, as you might guess. Len”—he gestured toward the dead man—“was our Hamlet.”
“Tough break,” she observed, scribbling a note. “Now, let’s go over everything that happened this morning leading up to finding the body, starting with the gentleman’s full name.”
Between me and Harry, we gave the sheriff a rehash of what we’d told Dr. Bishop a few minutes earlier. Despite that odd flash of suspicion that had swept over me at the beginning, I had no real reason to think there was anything nefarious about Len’s death. Thus I refrained from mentioning that he wasn’t the most popular member of the troupe. You know, the old no speaking ill of the dead rule that had been drilled into most of us since childhood.
Once we’d covered the high points, Lamb asked, “And did Mr. Marsh give any indication of feeling unwell at any time since he arrived here?”
I shook my head. “Not that I recall. Though he did have a previous knee injury that was giving him trouble. In fact, I had to turn my parlor into a guest room for him, as he was having difficulty managing the stairs.”
She frowned. “Do you happen to know if Mr. Marsh was taking any medication for the pain?”
“I think Susie—that’s his wife—said something about pills. Right, Harry?”
The actor nodded. “No clue what he was taking, but I’m sure Susie can show you any bottles.”
“And Ms. Fleet, did you serve anything unusual for breakfast—something that could have caused an allergic reaction, like strawberries or peanut butter?”
“It was all the usual breakfasts foods I always serve my guests. Quiches and breakfast burritos and pastries and so on. The only thing slightly unusual were the peach mimosas.”
Then, when the sheriff gave me a quizzical look, I explained, “They’re basically the same thing as your garden-variety mimosa, except you substitute half the orange juice with peach juice before adding the champagne. Oh, and you drizzle a bit of grenadine on top.”
By then, Dr. Bishop had finished up with the EMTs. The sheriff excused herself momentarily, and the pair exchanged a few private words while Harry and I pretended we were simply hanging out in the garden on a summer’s morning.
Finally, with a regal wave in my direction—Harry, apparently, still being in the older man’s bad book despite the protestations about grudges—the Reverend took his leave. Then it was time for the paramedics to head out. While half of them collected their scattered gear, the remaining EMTs slid Len onto their lowered gurney. Raising it up again, they blanketed and strapped the man in for the journey to wherever it was in Cymbeline they kept decedents, to use Dr. Bishop’s favorite word,
“I’m not sure why I’m so upset,” I admitted, dabbing my sleeve against my damp eyes while we watched the crew wheel Len away. “I mean, it’s awful that Len is dead, but it’s not like I knew him that well. I’d only met him yesterday.”
“Hey, you’re human,” Lamb assured me, sounding pretty darned human herself at that moment. “Plus it’s a shock any time you stumble across a body, especially for a civilian. And no matter what the old-time cops might tell you, it never gets easier. Believe me, there’s nothing scarier than coming face-to-face with mortality, even if it isn’t your own.”
Then, getting back to business, she closed her notebook.
“I think I’ve got everything we need out here. If you don’t mind showing me inside, I want to chat with Mr. Marsh’s wife to find out what medications her husband was taking so I can pass on that info to the coroner to give to the ME. Unfortunately, we can’t release his body until after the autopsy is done. But from the look of things, chances are it was a pretty straightforward cardiac event. Hopefully we’ll have a cause of death determined pretty quickly.”
As Deputy Mullins headed off to his own cruiser, I escorted the sheriff inside. Harry followed after. I could hear what I assumed were Susie’s faint wails drifting from the direction of the dining room. Either Marvin hadn’t found the cognac, or it hadn’t taken effect yet.
We paused outside the closed dining-room door, and I turned to the sheriff. “Why don’t I go in first and warn her that you need to ask a few questions?”
At her curt nod, I gave a quick rap at the door and then slipped inside.
I found Susie slumped in her usual chair, still crying while pressing one of my mid-century tea towels against her mouth as a makeshift handkerchief. Marvin sat in the chair next to her, silently patting her free hand and looking distinctly uncomfortable. A snifter of cognac a couple of fingers full sat untouched before her.
I grimaced as I envisioned the elbow grease it would take to remove pink lipstick from vintage linen, but that wasn’t the issue at the moment. Gently, I said, “Susie, the sheriff is here. She needs to ask you a few questions about Len’s medications.”
She made a snuffling sound that I took for assent, so I leaned back out the door and gestured Sheriff Lamb inside.
I saw her give the skull a quizzical look, but all she said was: “My condolences, Mrs. Marsh. I know this is a terrible time, but I really need to ask you a couple of questions for the coroner. Are you up to that?”
Susie nodded. Then, as Marvin rose to leave, she grabbed his hand and pulled him back into the chair. “No, wait,” she choked out. “Can’t Marvin stay with me?”
The sheriff nodded her approval, so I left the three of them and rejoined Harry in the hallway. While earlier his expression had been mildly disconcerted, he now wore a look of calculation that, in my brief acquaintanceship with him, usually boded no good.
I gave him a stern look of my own. “What are you planning?”
“I’m planning on saving the day,” was his airy reply. “I’ve come up with the perfect solution to our Len dilemma. The show will go on.”
“So what’s the brilliant solution?”
“Let’s just say I know someone who knows Hamlet’s part intimately and has the looks and stage presence to pull it off.”
Something told me that I knew just who this “someone” was. But since the B&B bill was already paid, it mattered naught to me, as the Bard might say, who took that role. My concern at this point was doing what I could to help the authorities make a swift determination as to why Len Marsh had died on my watch.
“So, do you think Susie will want to stay here with the rest of you until they release Len’s … er, Len? Or does she maybe have some family who can come get her?”
“Good question. I’ll talk to her once Connie leaves and find out for sure. The only relatives I’ve heard her mention are in California, so the troupe is probably the nearest thing she has to a family. Unless she’s close to any of Len’s folks, but from some of the comments I’ve heard her make in the past, I kind of suspect not.”
I nodded. The whole “young trophy wife hated by the older husband’s family and friends” was a cliché for a good reason.
“Keep me posted,” I told him. “I’m assuming rehearsals are cancelled for the rest of the day. If I can help you with anything, let me know.”
“I appreciate that,” he replied, sounding as if he actually did. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind running upstairs and seeing how everyone else is doing.”
I nodded, since I also needed to retrieve Mattie from wherever Radney and Chris had taken her. Leaving Harry outside the dining-room door, I headed upstairs. Bypassing the room where Susie was staying—packing up Len’s things from the parlor was probably going to fall to me—I rapped at Tessa and Bill’s open door and poked my head inside.
“How are you two holding up”
They’d been sitting on the bed near each other, backs to the door and heads tilted toward each other, whispering together like a couple of teens. At my question, they both whipped about with oddly guilty expressions.
“Oh, hello, Nina,” Tessa said. “Bill and I were just discussing the, ahem, situation. This was quite unexpected. I fear we haven’t quite taken it in yet.”
“I think we’re all in shock,” I agreed, a bit surprised to see no obvious show of grief from them. While Marvin might have been wrong about Susie, maybe he’d been right that the troupe wouldn’t care if Len permanently exited stage right.
Then Bill frowned. “I wonder how this will impact the festival. The show must go on, as they say. Perhaps I should remind Harry that I know Hamlet’s lines up and down, and would be happy to fill in for our deceased cast member.”
“I’m sure Harry has a backup plan,” I replied, resisting the temptation to repeat Harry’s comment about a geriatric Hamlet. “He’s going to talk with Susie as soon as the sheriff leaves. She won’t be able to take Len’s body back to Atlanta until after the autopsy, so I’m not sure yet if she’ll stay here at the B&B until then.”
The pair nodded their understanding.
“It would make better sense for her to stay here,” Tessa opined. “It would do her no good to go home to an empty house. At least here she’ll have something to distract her.”
“And she’ll have us for moral support,” Bill added, surprising me in light of the lack of concern he’d just shown for Len. Though maybe it was easier to care about a pretty young widow than it was that widow’s late spouse.
I left the pair and headed to the next room, which was the one Radney and Marvin shared. The door was closed, so I gave a polite knock. Radney answered a moment later, cell phone to one ear. He gestured me inside, giving me the “wait one” raised finger as he finished his call, his end of the conversation consisting mostly of a few “uh-huhs” and an “I’ll let you know” before he hung up.
“Sorry, Nina. I took the liberty of calling the office and telling Len’s executive assistant what happened. I didn’t want Susie to have to do that.”
“That’s kind of you. I’m sure she’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness.”
“Yeah, well, talk about that being the least I could do.”
He dropped onto one of the twin beds, swiping his free hand over his bald head as he sat there and gave me a helpless look.
“I’m kind of surprised how hard this is. I didn’t much like the guy, but I’ve worked with him for years at the day job. And then there’s all that time spent with troupe. I mean, an hour ago we were all sitting at the same table, talking, and now …”
I nodded as he trailed off. Radney, at least, recognized that a man had just died. They might not have been friends, but there was that decent acknowledgment of a fellow being’s passing that had been lacking with Bill and Tessa.
I repeated to Radney what little I knew so far. He nodded, and then asked, “What about the festival? We’re not canceling the play, are we?”
And just when he’d risen to the top of my good guy list.
I tried not to roll my eyes. Was there something about actors, amateur and pro alike, that made them so single-minded? Though, in fairness to the GASPers, the festival was a pretty big deal to the town. Looking at it from that angle, it spoke well for the players that they seemed willing to soldier on.
“I think Harry has a backup plan for the performance. I’m sure he’ll summon everyone later with an update.” Then, changing the subject, I asked, “So, what did you and Chris do with Mattie?”
“Last I saw, the kid took your pup to his room … you know, for comfort or something.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty good about making a person feel better. I’ll go talk to him next.”
I left him scrolling through his phone, presumably for the numbers of more people to notify, and headed for Chris’s room. Of all the GASPers, he was the one I worried most about right now … besides Susie, of course. I’d admired how he’d been the only member of the group who had tried to help Len. But chances were he’d never seen anyone dead before—at least, not unless they were already neatly laid out in an expensive casket surrounded by flower arrangements. But an up close and personal view of the body of a man he knew had to have been traumatic.
“Chris,” I called through the closed door as I gave a quick rap. “It’s Nina. Do you have Mattie in there with you?”
The only response was a muffled bark from the Aussie. Concerned, I twisted the knob and peered inside.
As on the day before, he was stretched out on one of the two twin beds, earbuds in and head propped on pillows as he stared at his phone. The oversized glasses lay on the bed beside him, his bare face looking even younger and more vulnerable. Mattie sat at his feet, chin on paws, as she turned an inquiring look from me back to the youth.
Ignoring the whole shoes on the clean bedspread thing, I asked, “Chris, are you all right? Chris? Chris?”
That last word was almost a shout. Apparently, it was loud enough to pierce the volume coming from his earbuds. He turned in my direction and plucked one out, then sighed. “Yeah?”
So much for vulnerable. After his valiant efforts on Len’s behalf earlier, I’d expected to find him prostrate with grief. Or at least suitably sad. Instead, he had the resigned look of someone who was being disturbed in the middle of a crucial round of Candy Crush or whatever the game du jour was.
Frowning a little, I said, “Sorry to intrude, but I was looking for Mattie.”
“You told us to keep her inside while the paramedics were here, so I figured this was the best place. Sorry if that wasn’t okay.”
“No, that was just fine. And the paramedics are gone.” Then, when he continued to stare, I went on, “The sheriff is talking to Susie right now.”
This comment sparked a look of interest. Plucking out the other earbud, the youth fixed me with a wide-eyed look. “Sheriff? Why is he here? They don’t think someone killed Len, do they?”
I stared right back. Why would Chris, of all people, jump to such a conclusion? Sure, I’d wondered the exact same thing, but for all of fifteen seconds.
“She,” I reflexively corrected the pronoun. “And not as far as I know. Sheriff Lamb needs information about any medication Len was taking. Since it was an unexpected death”—I refrained from giving the words finger quotes—“the coroner has called for an autopsy, just in case.”
He shrugged, the stare gone. “I suppose that makes sense. Still, you know how it goes. Old people die all the time.”
Old? Len was in his mid-fifties, which made him not much more than a dozen years older than me. Which in Chris’s world probably put me into the decrepit category too.
But before I could educate the kid about the realities of aging, he brightened and added, “Maybe now Harry will let me play Hamlet.”
Another contender.
I sighed and patted my leg to summon Mattie, who promptly slipped off the bed and joined me. As I turned to the door, I remarked, “I’m sure Harry has a plan in mind. I’ll let him know you’re up here when he’s ready to call a troupe meeting.”
But Chris had already stuck the earbuds back in his ears, effectively tuning me out. Shaking my head, I left the room. While Mattie padded with me down the hall, I mulled over the conversation I’d just had with the youth.
Back in the garden, Chris had seemed understandably upset by what had happened. Just as quickly, he had resumed his too cool for school ‘tude, only to then wonder, like me, if Len’s death was something other than an accident.
I shook my head. Probably, like me, he watched too many cop shows on TV.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys,” I reminded myself.
Instead, it was time to revert to my role as innkeeper. I would check in with Harry and see what Susie’s plans were. Then, assuming I wasn’t needed elsewhere, later today I would take on the sad task of packing Len’s things that remained in the parlor.