“What are you doing here?” Molly asked her brother Kevin as he came barreling through the kitchen door.
Kevin, two years older than Molly, stared at her with a surprised look. He glanced at Elise. “Elise called and said you found Aubrey Rhodes dead. I was worried. Are you okay?” He stood between them, his dark eyes darting back and forth between the women. “It must have been a shock.”
Avoiding Molly’s glare, Elise said, “I called Kevin first. I knew he was working close by.”
“So, you did call the police?” Molly asked.
The loud, classic ding-dong reverberated through the house. Elise nodded toward the door. “That’s probably them now.”
Molly rushed into the wide entryway, closely followed by Elise and Kevin. The guests crowded in, passing through the dining room and parlor doorways and flowing into the entry hall, with Nana pushing her way to the front. Glancing back at the anxious faces behind her, Molly reached for the front door’s brass doorknob. Through the oak door’s lead-glass inlay, she saw a familiar figure, and, despite the reason for his visit, she couldn’t stop the tiny smile that crept into the corners of her mouth.
Detective Tony Shannon stood in the vestibule between the entry and outside doors. “Molly, I got the call about a death. What’s happened?” His dark-brown hair was damp from the drizzle, and his electric-blue eyes searched her face.
“I found Aubrey Rhodes dead on the upstairs terrace this morning.”
Before entering the foyer, Tony wiped his feet on the customized Harrington House mat. He surveyed the group gathered in the entry hall and the parlor threshold, then nodded to Molly’s grandmother. “Hello, I’m Detective Tony Shannon from the sheriff’s office.”
George Roark stepped forward, wiping his palms on his trouser legs. “I’m Aubrey’s agent. I need to cancel appointments in Cincinnati. May I make a call? We’re obviously not going to make it, but what should I tell them?”
“Yes, please make your call, but tell them Mr. Rhodes is unavailable. I’d hate for the news of his death to get out before we notify his next of kin.” He returned a hard gaze to the guests, glancing from one to another. “And no posting to social media.”
After George stepped away, Tony said, “I’m going upstairs to view the scene with Miss Harrington. Please remain downstairs, and I need to talk to each of you before you go on with your day.”
“I’ll make fresh coffee,” Elise said, disappearing into the kitchen.
The house went from a breathless quiet to nervous chatter as the guests returned to the dining room and parlor.
“Kevin, aren’t you working today?” Tony asked.
Kevin nodded. “I’m doing a kitchen remodel down the road, but I came as soon as Elise called. She sounded so freaked out.”
“Don’t leave.” Tony gestured toward the stairs. “Molly, please walk me through what happened this morning.”
As they climbed the polished but well-worn staircase, Molly filled him in on the morning’s events. When they reached the Terrace Room, she explained her movements step-by-step, which ended with her standing over Aubrey’s body. Tony stood in the terrace doorway and surveyed the scene.
“Did you touch anything?”
Molly thought for a minute. “I think just the doorknobs, and maybe the room door.” She joined him on the terrace threshold.
“You didn’t touch the body or anything else?” His gaze fixed on her face.
She shook her head and tried not to look at Aubrey. “I walked over to him and leaned over to see if he was maybe just hurt, but his eyes were open and were…blank, staring up at me. And his clothes are wet. It wasn’t raining when I found him.”
“Has anyone else been in the room?”
Molly glanced away. “When I found the door unlocked, I peeked in, but then I went downstairs to get Elise.”
“Why?”
Molly looked up at him. “In my experience, it’s always good to have a witness. I asked her to call the police while I closed the room. She apparently called Kevin too.”
“So, just you and Elise have been in here?”
“Well, not exactly. On our way back downstairs, we ran into George Roark, and he rudely pushed himself into the room.”
“So, you, Elise, and George…” He held up three fingers.
“And Tracy. She came in shortly after George.”
He threw up his hands. “Damn it, Molly. How many people have been traipsing around my crime scene?”
“I wouldn’t call it traipsing,” she said. “I’m the only one that’s been out on the terrace. They remained inside the bedroom.”
“Hmmm.” He retrieved his phone from his pocket. “Stand right here and don’t touch anything.” He stepped inside the room, and she heard him call the dispatcher to notify the crime scene unit and the county coroner.
While he was on the phone, Molly remained in the terrace doorway. The drizzle had stopped again, but the damp spring air was chilly, and she rubbed her arms for warmth. She looked up at the gray sky and thought the rain might hold off at least until the crime scene people arrived. She hoped the investigation would not tie up this room for more than a day or two. There were upcoming reservations for the next weekend, and she needed the room. Fingers crossed, maybe she wouldn’t have to cancel anyone. But perhaps the incoming guests wouldn’t want to stay in a room where someone had died or maybe been murdered.
Molly shivered and returned her attention to the terrace, a ten-by-ten-foot square designed as a place to enjoy coffee in the morning or a nightcap after a day of sightseeing in the picturesque Ohio River area or nearby Cincinnati—at least, that’s what she’d put in the brochure.
The terrace, added on top of the summer porch built by her great-grandparents in the mid-1920s, sported a new, cobalt-blue-and-white porcelain-tile floor. That new floor had Aubrey’s blood on it. She shivered.
Would it stain? she wondered, and then chided herself for worrying about herself when Aubrey lay dead in front of her.
The terrace overlooked the gravel driveway and the woods beyond, now barely visible through the mist. A three-foot brick wall, matching the original brick of the house, bordered the terrace on three sides. A standing flower box boasted petunias, marigolds, and other colorful spring annuals and stood between pots of short evergreen trees across from the French doors.
Her gaze rested on the open book on the floor, and she wondered how the book fell upside down. And why did he have a book on the terrace at all? There had been no moon the night before. It would have been too dark to read without a brighter light than the sconces on either side of the French doors. Then she realized what she’d missed earlier with the shock of finding Aubrey. An open bottle of champagne sat on the round, wrought-iron bistro table. She looked closer and realized the bottle was nearly empty. The cork was next to it, as was a champagne flute, filled, she guessed, with a mixture of champagne and rainwater. On the floor, bits of delicate glass were practically invisible on the white tile. She spotted the intact stem on its side next to the black table leg. She chided herself again for being annoyed that Aubrey had taken her new champagne flutes. After all, he was dead, and his blood was in a puddle on her new floor. But who’d drunk out of the second glass, and could that person have killed Aubrey?
From inside the room, Molly heard, “Get out here as soon as you can before it rains again. I don’t want the rain to wash away anymore evidence than it already has. Also, plan on exclusion prints. Who knows how many people have been in this room?”
Tony returned to Molly’s side on the terrace threshold.
Molly gestured toward the bistro table. “There are two glasses, one on the table and a broken one on the floor. I wonder who Aubrey had up here.”
“Good question,” he said. “Was Aubrey flirting with anyone, or was he paying particular attention to someone last night?”
“There’s Lindsay Luttrell, the woman in the Roaring Twenties Room. She’s a big fan of Aubrey’s. In fact, she runs his Facebook fan page. She followed him around last night like a puppy dog. She took videos and pictures, and then, throughout the evening, she posted them to social media so his fans could enjoy the party with her.”
“Is she the blonde with the long ponytail?” He squatted to get a closer look at Aubrey’s face.
“No, that’s Tracy Barnes, his publicist from the publishing house.”
He looked up at Molly. “Do you think Aubrey would bring either of them into his room to drink champagne? A toast for a successful book launch?”
“Last night, after Aubrey went upstairs, Tracy helped me clean up and put the parlor back in order. This morning, she said that after helping me she just took ibuprofen, turned on white noise, and went to sleep.”
“What about the other girl?”
“Lindsay, I don’t know. Maybe. She’s a fangirl, to be sure.” Molly raised her shoulders in a shrug. “But she said she heard Aubrey’s door open and close about one.”
“Perhaps that’s when his champagne-drinking companion left the room.” He stood, took a few steps to the wall, and glanced at the gravel parking lot below.
“The front door wasn’t latched when I got up this morning. Everyone was in when I locked up around eleven, so someone opened the door after that.”
Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me about the other guests staying here.”
“You met George, his agent. I overheard a conversation between Aubrey and Tracy. He talked about dropping George to go with a new agent. I don’t think George knows about that.”
“Maybe he does but isn’t letting on.” He raised his eyebrows. “There was another couple. Who are they?”
“Oh, the Chiassons from New Orleans. Diana’s sister is getting married tonight. They’re not part of the book party.”
“Was there anyone here you didn’t recognize?” he asked.
Molly thought for a minute. “There was one attractive, well-dressed young man I saw talking to Aubrey quite a bit.”
“You’d never seen him before?”
“After I overheard Tracy and Aubrey, I wondered if it might be his new agent.”
Tony paused for a beat and wrote something in the notebook he’d pulled from his jacket pocket. “Please get me a list of everyone who stayed in the house last night and which rooms they were in. I’ll also need a guest list for last night’s party.”
“No problem with the occupied rooms, but I don’t know about a guest list,” she said. “But Tracy had a sign-up sheet where guests could sign up for Aubrey’s newsletter.”
“Okay, I’ll follow up with her on that. But can you look for anyone who was at the party but didn’t sign in?” He returned the notebook to his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and took pictures of the terrace, the champagne bottle and glasses, and Aubrey from various angles.
When he finished, he turned back to Molly. “Let’s lock the room and go downstairs. I’ll talk to the witnesses until forensics gets here.” He looked up at the ominous gray clouds. “I hope this rain holds off long enough for the crime scene guys to put up a tarp, or the remaining evidence could get washed away.”