CHAPTER THREE

 

The guests immediately started talking, excited that the game had begun.

"What is it?" Soo Jin asked me.

I whispered, "He's not the victim."

She leapt to her feet and raced over to the man. She felt his neck for a pulse and then, looking at me and with an imperceptible movement, shook her head.

Stacey froze, a mask of fear on her face. She and I were the only ones who knew the story. Enos wasn't the victim. Dennis Blunt was. And right now, Blunt emerged from his haze of indifference to pull some papers from his pocket. He read them and looked at Enos before reading them again, just in case he'd missed something.

I joined Soo Jin and spoke quietly. "He's really dead? Did he have a heart attack?"

She nodded. "He is dead. But I don't know about the heart attack. Could you clear the room for me?"

"Okay, everyone," I announced. "Let's all move to the ballroom."

"Oh good!" Violet squealed. "Time to interview each other and take notes!" From her purse she pulled a small notepad that we'd provided in the envelopes and clicked the end of a pen. The others noticed and did the same thing.

I gave my troop a look. "That means you too, ladies."

The guests practically ran through the doorway. My troop grudgingly followed them out. Last week, they'd offered some creative suggestions on gory deaths for the victims, including sausages, gummy brains, and blood made from cake icing and food coloring. I reminded them that this was a cozy mystery and that kind of thing wasn't allowed, which disappointed them immensely. When they came up with a way one of the victims could "explode," showering the room in pieces of flesh-colored fondant, I had to end the conversation by bribing them with ice cream. By the way—that always works. Always.

"Stacey," I said, "you and Juliette go with them. Keep an eye on things until we get there."

The woman stood stock still. Juliette approached. "He's really dead, isn't he?" The look on her face indicated she thought, or hoped, that I'd done it.

"Yes. And he wasn't the victim. But don't tell anyone that. Just go to the ballroom and keep an eye on things until we get there."

The two women agreed and left. Soo Jin took out her cell phone and tapped in a number. She frowned and tried again.

"I don't have any cell service here."

I hit Rex's number on speed dial. Technically, we were outside of Who's There's jurisdiction, so I should've called the sheriff. It was force of habit that made me call my husband when someone dropped dead in my presence.

The room was growing darker. Glancing out the window, I noticed that several dark clouds were covering the sun.

"I've got nothing." I stared at my phone. "Oh, right. Audrey told us the cell service here was practically nonexistent. Wait! I think there's a landline by the stairs."

She nodded, and I ran out of the room.

BOOM! There was a clap of thunder. A storm? We weren't supposed to get bad weather. A very elaborate gilded vintage phone was on a credenza next to the staircase. I picked it up.

Dead. No ringtone. Had the storm knocked out a telephone pole somewhere? I wasn't really sure how that worked.

Back in the dining room, I reported this to Dr. Body. She was taking pictures of the deceased, using her cell.

"We can't call out?" She frowned. "We'll have to send Ned and the boat for help."

Rain and wind began to lash at the windows. I turned to exit the room, but the doorway was filled with the large and angry-for-no-reason Ned Odom.

"What's going on?" he barked as he loomed over me.

"Enos McQuaid is dead." I pointed at the body. "We have no cell service, and the landline is out." A crack of lightning lit up a room that was becoming darker with the storm. "We need you to take the boat to shore and call the sheriff."

He shook his head. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Boat's gone," he roared. "Your people took it to shore but didn't bring it back. Just got something on the radio in the boathouse. Storm's too bad."

A radio! "Contact the authorities using the radio!"

The big man shook his head angrily. "It was just hit by lightning. Radio's out."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am!" And without another word, he left.

I stood there, mind racing. Enos must've had a heart attack. And there wasn't anything we could do. Something nagged me from the back of my mind, but I ignored it. The only way to make a call was back at shore, where cell service worked. We needed to get there, but how? And what were we supposed to do in the meantime?

"Merry." Soo Jin waved me over. "Help me get him to the floor."

We each took hold of one of the young man's shoulders and lifted him off the chair, which pulled his face out of the fish. With my foot, I slid the chair back, and we laid him out on the floor. And that was when I saw it.

My heart sank. "This was murder, wasn't it?"

Soo Jin nodded. "Looks that way."

McQuaid's skin was pink. Like he was covered in Pepto-Bismol pink. There was a slight odor of bitter almonds. I assumed Enos had been poisoned, because people didn't usually look like that unless they were covered in bubble gum. How did I know that? Because I had a troop of little girls who made an unfortunate choice one night at camp.

"I'm fairly certain he was poisoned," Soo Jin said, pointing at his skin. "See the unnaturally pink skin? Cyanide can do that. Check his food."

I studied his plate. It had the same things as everyone else's—the fish and the salad. Both half-eaten. The other plates were similar. Apparently, the lunch wasn't that popular with our guests. That wouldn't look good on the exit evaluations.

Soo Jin was opening the man's mouth. With a fork, she gently pried his lips apart and reached inside. She pulled out a piece of the fish and set it down.

"We all ate the same lunch." I gasped.

She gave me a look. "You didn't eat your fish."

"Yes, but you and everyone else did. And no one else is dead."

I moved to a point between the two doorways, facing the lounge and the hallway to keep watch in case one of the other guests returned. There was a flash of movement in my peripheral vison on my right. Someone was in the lounge.

Great. Now people were just wandering around. I marched into the room to find it dark and empty. I could swear I'd seen a shadow. But unlike the dining room, there was only one entrance to the lounge. So, I would've seen anyone coming out.

The five large windows were all locked from the inside. Rain lashed violently at them, followed by a few softer claps of thunder. After checking behind curtains and the furniture, I gave up. Enos's murder caused me to imagine things. I passed the table with the clay figures on it and froze.

"Soo Jin!" I shouted as quietly as possible. "Can you come in here?"

"I shouldn't leave the body," came the reply before she appeared in the doorway.

The look on my face must've convinced her, because she quickly walked across the hall.

"What?"

"Look!" I pointed at the tray full of mangled clay animals. The head of the squirrel-like thing had been torn off and was lying in the middle of the tray. The body—or at least what I thought was the body—lay on its side.

And that was when it hit me what had been bothering me.

"This is just like the book!" I whispered.

She frowned. "The book?"

"Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None." I took a deep breath. "The guests are stranded on that island due to a storm. As people die, the figurines are destroyed."

Soo Jin nodded. "Yes. I know. That's why Mrs. Willard wrote the script this way. When the victims die, the girls are supposed to come here and break the animals."

"Yes, but the girls didn't do this. They were with us. And we weren't expecting a storm. We were told there was no cell service here, but we weren't expecting the landline being unusable. And we certainly didn't expect someone to really die. And it wasn't supposed to be Enos."

The medical examiner looked around her. "There has to be something different."

I nodded. "There is one thing. In the book the power goes out. At least we don't have that to deal with."

Another crack of lightning and blast of thunder and the lights flickered. After a split second, all the power went out.

Soo Jin raised her eyebrow. "You were saying?"

We went back into the dining room and found that not much had changed with Enos. I was kind of hoping he'd spring to his feet and shout "Ta-da!" He didn't.

"What do we do with him?" I asked as Ned and Miriam showed up with candles, which they placed around the room. I waited for them to leave. "We can't leave him here," I whispered loudly after they went into the hall.

"I'm not sure." Dr. Body bit her lip. "We shouldn't put him in his room. With the power out, things are going to warm up, especially on the second floor. He needs to be on ice. And the fridge in the kitchen is too small."

"Maybe they have a chest freezer in the basement?" I suggested.

She snapped her fingers. "The basement. It's probably cooler down there. We'll do that."

I hoped Ned would return, and I toyed with asking Thad and Dennis for help. But Soo Jin didn't want to contaminate the body. So, we lugged Enos into the hallway, keeping an eye on the ballroom, and dragged him to the door in the side of the staircase that led down to the cellar.

The man was heavy. Maybe two hundred and fifty pounds that didn't look great on a five-foot, five-inch frame. I weighed about 120, and I was pretty sure Soo Jin weighed less than that. It wasn't easy moving him, and for a moment I entertained the idea that we could sort of set him on the top step and roll him down.

But like Soo Jin said, we couldn't contaminate the body, which probably included adding bumps and bruises that might confuse her inspection later. Instead, I took his arms and she took his legs, and we went down step by step. I couldn't guarantee that we didn't hit his head a few times along the way, but I'd warn her about unexpected bruises later. Besides, the pink skin and odor of bitter almonds made it pretty obvious he'd been poisoned. Soo Jin agreed but asked me to be careful nonetheless.

I hadn't been in the basement, and I was pretty sure no one in our group had. It wasn't in the script. Fortunately, the Deivers had never finished it. And it was dry. We dragged him to a corner of the cement floor and laid him out.

"Mrs. Wrath!" screamed a girl upstairs, and the two of us raced up to see Betty just outside the door.

She pointed at the lounge, and I took her meaning.

"The squirrel," I said quickly. "We know."

The other girls were peeking out of one of the ballroom's four doorways. Behind them, I could see the other guests talking, as if they didn't just witness a murder.

"We have to tell everyone," Soo Jin said. "I can't see any way around it."

I agreed. "I guess that means it's over."

The medical examiner shook her head sadly. "I guess so."

"Okay." I squared my shoulders. "But we aren't going to say Enos was murdered. One of those people killed him, and we can't let that person know that we're onto him."

Soo Jin agreed, and I walked toward the doorway as the girls backed away. Inside the large ballroom, clusters of guests were interviewing each other animatedly. Except for Dennis. He was in a corner, staring at the papers he'd consulted earlier. The snarky smugness he'd displayed earlier had been replaced by real confusion.

Stacey and Juliette were in the other corner, next to the piano. Stacey was horrified. Juliette looked grim (but then, she always looked like that). No doubt they were worried about liability. Too bad Enos hadn't died from a heart attack. It would make things so much easier.

"What are you going to say?" Soo Jin whispered.

I didn't answer. Instead, I clapped to get their attention. Thirteen pairs of eyes turned my way.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "But Enos McQuaid is dead."

A clap of thunder rumbled outside, and the rain was coming down in crashing torrents that almost drowned me out.

"Yes, dear," Violet said. "It's part of the event. We know."

Caroline Regent cleared her throat. "It was pretty convincing too. I thought he was really dead."

"Did you know our cell phones don't work here?" Wren looked anxiously around her.

Arthur smiled warmly. "The special effects so far are amazing. You ladies have done a smashing job."

A round of applause broke out, aimed at me. Dennis looked around, startled, and then joined in. He probably thought we'd changed things up.

"Um…" He held up his hand. "I think I got Enos's envelope by mistake."

The room grew quiet. I could see how he thought that. Maybe he went to the wrong room and picked up the envelope for Enos by mistake, in spite of the fact that I'd written DENNIS on it in large letters.

"No," I fumbled. "You didn't."

By now the other six guests were confused.

"Dennis was supposed to be the victim," I said. "Enos is really dead. That wasn't part of the event."

"That poor man!" Wren howled.

"Well, he was super fat," Taylor mused.

The others gasped.

"What?" she asked. "He was."

Caroline nodded. "I've seen that a lot in my work. Fat builds up around the intestines. Leads to strokes and heart attacks."

Arthur put his arm around his wife. "It was a heart attack?"

I thought about how to answer this, but Juliette cut me off. "Yes. It was from natural causes."

There was a brief silence as the guests weighed their options. Why did Juliette say that? Oh. Right. Stacey didn't know it was murder either. Maybe that was a good idea—letting everyone think it was natural causes.

"We should go," Violet finally said. "I don't care if you keep the donation. I just don't think it's right to continue."

Thad groused, "I'm going to ask for my money back."

Wren looked like she was about to disagree but thought better of it.

"You can keep my parents' money too," Dennis said.

Taylor scowled. "Well, they're not keeping mine! Especially after that lunch!"

The group started moving toward the door, mumbling about collecting their things and leaving.

"I'm sorry," I shouted. "But we can't leave just yet. As Wren mentioned, there's no cell service. The landline is dead, and the boat is at the shore. Ned says the water is too rough from the storm."

Betty pipped up. "We could do semaphore. I could climb onto the roof and wave some towels."

I immediately regretted the badge work we'd just done on semaphore. While the offer was consistent with the Girl Scout values of helping out, the thought of Betty falling off the rain-soaked roof was almost too much to bear.

"It's too dangerous," Soo Jin said. "But that was a great idea."

As long as nobody panicked and the power came back on, we'd be fine for the couple of hours or so until the storm blew over. I just needed to keep everyone safe, and we just needed to keep it together and hunker down. We were all adults (well, mostly), so this shouldn't be too difficult, right?

Wren began to wail. Loudly. She went off like a distressed siren. Caroline patted her awkwardly on the back, but her husband, Thad, did nothing to comfort his wife. Instead, I was pretty sure he copped a feel from Taylor's backside. I couldn't really see it, but I was familiar with the move, due to some unwanted advances from a Japanese businessman at a barbecue in Tokyo.

"You have to get us out of here," Taylor menaced, ignoring Thad's touch. "I don't want to stay another moment in a house with a dead body."

The others seemed to agree.

"Well," I said. "You're all welcome to go outside and stand in the cold rain with the dangerous lightning." I was talking to them like they were children. Actually, my girls were the only ones remaining calm, and they seemed to want to stay.

My offer put a stop to any mutterings. At this point, all of the guests (except for the killer) believed that Enos died of natural causes. They weren't worried about a mystery killer.

The problem was what to do in the meantime, because I had no idea how long this storm would last. What would Rex do? My husband, the detective, would investigate. This was the perfect situation since the killer might not even realize that Soo Jin and I were onto them.

There was a rattling of dishes in the dining room.

"Please," I called out. "Just stay here for now."

Soo Jin was hot on my heels as I ran into the dining room. Ned and Miriam were inside, gathering up the dishes. Did she know about the murder? Ned only knew we had a body, not a victim. He must've told Miriam what happened to the young man.

"Wait!" I ran over and took Enos's plate from her. "We have to check the food!"

"It wasn't the fish," the woman said defensively. "I made it myself. It wasn't the fish."

"I know." I was pretty sure someone poisoned the fish—which would mean it was the fish. I just didn't want to tell her that. "I just wanted to see something."

She nodded and then took an armload of dishes across the other hall, into the kitchen.

Soo Jin examined the plate. I had no idea what to look for. At last she shook her head. "I don't see anything different." She ran into the kitchen and returned with a large baggie. The medical examiner then put the plate and all of its contents inside and zipped it shut. She waited for Miriam and Ned to leave before asking, "Where should we store evidence?"

That was an excellent question. None of the other guests knew about the basement. But Miriam and Ned did. Where else could I put it where it would be safe until the authorities arrived?

"Is Miriam a suspect?" she whispered. "She made lunch. We know she handled the food and set the plates before everyone."

I stared at the doorway. "I suppose she is. She had opportunity. I remember her giving Enos his food. But what's the motive?"

As far as I knew, Miriam and Enos wouldn't know each other. There was an age difference, and they definitely ran in different social circles. Unless Miriam really didn't like brushing her teeth, I couldn't think of anything that would make her want to kill him.

"Do you think there's some sort of connection between Miriam and Ned?" I wondered out loud. "Father and daughter maybe?" Ned was in his sixties. I was fairly certain about that. "Or May/December romance?"

Soo Jin shrugged. "There may be no other connection besides working together."

Miriam returned, so we stopped talking.

"I'm sorry I was defensive. I didn't want to serve fish. I was going to make lasagna." She was wringing her hands and glancing over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "I make an excellent lasagna. The Deivers would have it every day if they could."

Lasagna would've been amazing. My stomach rumbled in time with the thunder outside. With the power off, we wouldn't be able to cook anything.

"Maybe we can have it when the power's back on," I suggested.

"We have a range," the cook said. "One of those cookers they have in England. It runs on thermal heat and is always on. Can I make you a plate?"

Soo Jin and I shouted at the same time, "Yes!"

"Heat up the whole thing," I insisted. "Everyone will love it."

The housekeeper went back to the kitchen, a little happier. We could feed the guests some real food, and that might distract them. And I could watch everyone to see if one of our guests might be the killer.

Soo Jin headed to the ballroom to make the announcement that lunch was back on, while I did a quick search of the place where Enos had sat. We were probably taking a risk in being poisoned if Miriam or Ned was the killer. But I was starving, and besides the girls, who'd eaten an entire platter of grilled cheese sandwiches, I was sure everyone else was too.

The chair looked like the others, and I examined every part of it, including the underside. I wasn't sure why…it just seemed like something a detective would do. Lifting the place mat revealed nothing either. Nothing. I couldn't find any evidence of the poisoning.

While everyone glumly filed in to take their places at the table, I slipped across the hall to the kitchen to keep an eye on Miriam while she heated up the lasagna. The scent of pasta, marinara sauce, sausage, and cheese drove me mad with desire. I found the box of breadsticks on the counter and helped myself.

The kitchen was pretty large. Larger than the one in my little ranch-style house. This room had all the bells and whistles, from granite countertops to stainless appliances to the odd stove Miriam was working at.

"That's a range?" I asked through a mouthful of crumbs. "It's kind of weird."

In her insanely quiet voice, the cook told me that this was an AGA range—something the English kept at their country homes. Constantly warm and not connected to power, the range could cook multiple things at once in its four compartments and on the hot plates.

As she spoke, I poked around the cupboards, looking for a big bottle with a skull on it, labelled POISON. I didn't find it. Ned wasn't around either, but by the way Miriam kept glancing at the doorway, I guessed he was coming back any minute.

The rain pounded the windows, and even though it was daylight, I could barely see five feet outside the window. How did we miss the weather reports when we set this up? I hoped that task hadn't been assigned to me.

Miriam prattled on almost soundlessly as I thought about what had happened here. We had eight guests, two staff, two Girl Scout Council employees, and my troop. Immediately, I eliminated my group from the list of suspects. And even though it would be awesome if Juliette were the murderer, I was pretty sure that she and Stacey were innocent. Juliette might hate me with a burning passion, but she loved her job. It was her life.

One of the guests was dead. That left nine suspects. One of those people must've poisoned Enos. But who was it?

CRAAAAAACK!

A bolt of lightning blazed through the room, and the ground shook. Peering out the window, I could see that a huge branch had been sheared off of an old maple and landed a foot away from the window.

And in the room across the hall, a killer was quietly sitting with my troop, convinced they'd gotten away with murder. We were trapped on an island with no cell service or power and no way back to the mainland.

One of those people murdered Enos McQuaid in cold blood.

But who was it? And why?