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I let out a tiny scream.
Earl Lipinski was standing directly behind me.
He gave me a curious but friendly smile. “Is everything alright?”
I was speechless.
Denise, however, was not. “Don’t mind her,” she said, nodding at me. “She’s just babbling.”
I swallowed a couple of times, trying to regain my composure. All I could see were the words Earl had scrawled on the Guess Who activity sheet, the words that were now causing me to look at him in fear.
His eyebrows drew together, a look of concern on his face. “You don’t look so good,” he told me. “Is it the fire? Do you need to sit down?”
Wordlessly, I shook my head.
He took a step toward me, and the man I’d always thought of as sort of a thin Santa Claus suddenly looked ominous.
“It was you,” I whispered, my eyes feeling like they were going to pop out of their sockets.
He cocked his head. “What was me?”
“Sunny.” The warning in Denise’s voice was audible.
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
He sort of chuckled. “What?” He glanced uncertainly at Denise. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
It was Denise’s turn to shake her head.
“You wanted to marry Mary because you’re in love with her,” I said. “Didn’t you?”
“Of course I love her,” he said agreeably. “She’s a dear friend.”
“No. You love her.”
He’d said so, right on the form he’d filled out. It wasn’t a bullet point, but rather something he’d erased from the bottom corner of the sheet of paper. Something that was still visible, in the right lighting and if one looked hard enough.
Mary Lipinski.
He’d written her name...but giving her his surname.
It was something I’d done dozens of times in middle school, crushing on a boy and writing out my first name coupled with his last name.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He laughed nervously. “Maybe you have smoke inhalation? Can that make you delusional?” he asked, to no one in particular.
“You love her,” I insisted. “Admit it.”
“You are delusional. She was in love with Arthur. I only proposed to her because I knew how much she wanted to be married. And that...that man wouldn’t do it.”
“But you were in love with her first,” I said. “And you got mad at her when she turned down your proposal the other night.”
Denise had set the box down and was watching the exchange between us, her expression clouded, her lips set in a firm line.
“I got upset because she was denying herself something she wanted,” he countered.
But there was something else that I’d seen on his form.
Something that made me absolutely positive he was the one who had poisoned Arthur.
“What about the plants in Ruth’s apartment?” I said. I was feeling bolder now, the fear I’d initially felt upon seeing him abating a little.
“What about them?”
“Sunny,” Denise said again.
I held up my hand. “Earl had access to Ruth’s plants.”
“Uh, so did Ruth,” she said with a frown.
“But she didn’t know what any of them were!” I looked at my friend, pleading with her. “Don’t you see?”
“No,” she said frankly. “I don’t.”
“He’s a retired botanist.” Denise just stared at me. “He worked for years for a pesticide company. If anyone would know what was growing in Ruth’s apartment—and how to use it—it’s him!”
What I was saying finally seemed to register with Denise, because her eyes grew as round as saucers and her mouth dropped open.
I looked triumphantly at Earl.
He didn’t bat an eyebrow. “No one will believe you,” he said calmly.
“Of course they will.”
“No, they won’t.” His voice was pleasant; he was even smiling. “Not when I tell them I saw the two of you in Ruth’s room. Without Ruth’s knowledge.”
“So?” I said. “The staff here often go into residents’ rooms. And we had a valid reason for being in there.” I tried to forget that we’d fabricated our reason.
“And that I heard you discussing what you did to poor Arthur,” he continued, as if I hadn’t said a word. “Denise here was the one who slipped the leaves in his food.”
Denise gasped.
“And you...” Earl was still smiling but his eyes were cold. Hard. “You were the one who orchestrated it. Because you’d heard the rumors that Arthur was moving on to you next...after he was done with getting Lola fired. Everyone knew how much he hated all of the stupid activities you planned.”
I drew back as if he’d slapped me. His words stung, and not just the terrifying accusation he’d just fabricated.
I parroted his earlier words back to him. “No one will believe you,” I said weakly.
“Of course they will,” he argued, still smiling. I wanted to rip it off his face. “I’m a resident here. I pay good money and they can’t afford to lose me. But you?” He looked down his nose at Denise before turning his derision to me. “Dining staff and a lousy activity director so wet behind the ears that she can’t plan a single thing residents enjoy? You guys are a dime a dozen.”
My heart was hammering out of control.
I couldn’t look at Denise because I knew what she was thinking.
It was probably the same thought that was running through my head.
Earl had a story that would work.
We all knew it.
It would be his word against ours.
And his version would win.
“So,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Who has a phone handy? We can call this in now and get it over with.”
“I do.”
The three of us looked at each other.
And then we turned, almost in unison, to see who was standing in the back of the kitchen.