sixteen

“So I called 999 immediately, and when I hung up I ran out to the spa and found Heather facedown in the hot tub with her hair feathering outward like”—I made a wavy motion with my fingers to mimic the way her long strands of hair had undulated in the water—“like seaweed.” I shivered involuntarily. “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen a drowning victim before.”

“May you have the good fortune never to see one again, Mrs. Miceli.”

I sat opposite Constable Tredinnick in Enyon’s office, recounting my actions as best as I could remember.

A steady stream of police and emergency vehicles had pulled into the parking lot throughout the morning. Fire truck. Ambulance. Official-looking SUV carrying men with cases that resembled tool boxes. Coroner’s van. The fire truck and ambulance had left within a half hour of their arrival, and three hours later the coroner’s van had departed with Heather’s body. But the SUV remained in the parking lot, which was a good indication that the scene was still being processed.

When Tredinnick arrived he had warned us that he’d be taking statements from all the guests, so he’d cautioned us to remain in the inn and not wander off. When he began the interview process he questioned Caroline first, but she remained so visibly shaken by her discovery that he offered to have the paramedics return to administer a sedative. She’d declined medical treatment in favor of returning to her room to take one of her “fear of flying” pills, but I doubted that any anti-anxiety drug would be powerful enough to erase the image of Heather’s lifeless body from her memory.

Tredinnick tapped the point of his pen on his mini notepad. “What did you do after you verified that Ms. Holloway was dead?”

“I called Wally to tell him that Heather had drowned, that help was on the way, and that he should keep everyone away from the spa. And then I sat down on the bench along the wall and just kinda stared at the hot tub. I wasn’t sure what else to do, but I…I didn’t feel as if I should leave her alone.” I blinked to clear away the moisture that was glazing my vision.

“How long did you remain in the spa?”

“Until the ambulance arrived. I met them in the parking lot and let them take over from there.”

He made a notation on the page. “Did you notice anything out of place in the immediate vicinity of the spa while you were waiting for the ambulance? Anything overturned or broken? Any signs that would indicate a struggle?”

I shook my head. “I…everything looked pretty much in order to me…other than Heather’s body.”

“She apparently suffered a nasty gash on her forehead, Mrs. Miceli, so we’re thinking her injury might have contributed to her death.”

“When would she have sustained a head injury? When she was climbing out of the tub?”

“There was no trace of blood on the decking, no wet footprints anywhere to indicate she’d actually emerged from the tub. There was a puddle of water on the floor, but it was from the same leak I noticed two days ago. And she was expecting Ms. Goodfriend to join her, so I doubt she would have entertained leaving before her friend even arrived. You ladies are rather courteous about such things. And yet another curiosity: she’d set no towel on the decking for herself. Do you find it curious that a woman would have no towel available to dry herself off?”

“I’d probably have one, but if she was waiting for Caroline to arrive, maybe she figured Caroline could grab one off the pile for her.”

“There was no pile, Mrs. Miceli. There were no towels in the building at all.”

“None? But there was a whole stack on the bench by the dressing rooms when you interviewed us the other day.”

“Have your guests been indulging themselves in the spa experience?”

I shook my head. “Our tour director used it once, but as far as I know, Heather was the first actual guest to try it out.”

“The first, and the last. Per my official order, the spa will remain closed until further notice.”

I searched his face, clinging onto one last glimmer of hope. “This could simply be a freak accident, right?”

Tredinnick drew his brows together over his nose. “Port Jacob recorded its very first murder the day your tour group arrived, Mrs. Miceli, and three days later we’re recording what is possibly our second. My instincts tell me her death was no accident, but I’ll be having to wait for the postmortem to confirm it.”

So. No spa. No optional tours. No wandering. No nothing.

On the upside, at least there was no way this trip could get any worse.

“I want to interview your bloggers on an individual basis, but seeing as how the members of your Iowa contingent were together when the crime was perpetrated, I’d like to interview them as a group.”

I heaved a hopeless sigh.

Wrong again.

“I’ve established a tentative timeline,” Tredinnick announced from the front of the room, “but I’d appreciate your helping me fill in the blanks. Mrs. Miceli rang up 999 at 7:02 this morning according to the emergency services log. I’ll be needing to know what happened before then.”

Wally and I had knocked on every door, requesting the gang’s immediate presence in the lounge, and, true to form, they’d arrived promptly, rolling their suitcases with them and snugging them by their legs like they did in the airport.

“Before we begin,” said Tredinnick, looking confounded, “is there a reason why you went through the trouble of dragging your luggage out here with you?”

“Anti-theft protection,” volunteered Margi. “A new policy we started implementing at breakfast. If we carry all our valuables around with us, the thief won’t have anything to steal if he breaks into our rooms.” She rested a loving hand on the top of her spinner. “No way is he going to get his paws on my hand sanitizer.”

“Emily forced our hand,” accused Dick Teig. “She told us there’d be no more room service, so we had to find another way to protect our stuff.”

I hung my head. Oh, God.

Tredinnick’s tone turned sardonic. “You don’t find your solution a trifle…inconvenient?”

“It’s not bad,” confessed George, “unless you’ve got a suitcase with a screwy wheel. Which reminds me, did anyone bring a travel- size can of WD-40 with them?”

“Returning to the matter at hand,” said Tredinnick, clicking his pen with a slight show of attitude, “where are the cooks?”

Nana and Jackie raised their hands.

“What time did you start serving breakfast this morning?”

“When folks was at the table.”

“What time was that?”

Nana shrugged. “I dunno. I was so busy I didn’t pay no attention.” She caught Jackie’s eye. “You know what time we begun?”

“It was right after I suffered my injury.” She stuck her forefinger in the air to display the foreshortened stump of her nail to Tredinnick. “I might have to lop them all off now to make them all the same length. And I didn’t bring any polish with me for touchups because the bottles always leak in transit.”

“What time was that?” Tredinnick repeated.

“I don’t know! How would you expect me to glance at a clock when I’m dealing with a level-one trauma?”

He scribbled something on his pad before nodding toward the gathered crowd. “What time did you eat breakfast?”

“Awhile after we showed up,” said Osmond.

“Specific time, please?”

Shrugs. Lip twisting. Googly eyes.

Tredinnick frowned. “Are you telling me that not one of you bothered to look at your watch or cell phone to check the time?”

“They were in our suitcases,” explained Helen.

“For their own protection,” reiterated Margi.

I gazed heavenward. Seriously, Lord?

“Does the inn provide nightstand clocks in your suites?” persisted Tredinnick.

“You bet,” said Dick Stolee. “Digital models that light up the whole room.”

“Did any of you check your room clocks to see what time you came out to breakfast this morning?”

“I did,” enthused Alice. “It was precisely six o’clock. I was the first one to arrive.”

“Thank you. Was breakfast scheduled to be served at six?”

“It was scheduled for seven thirty,” Alice continued, “but I wanted to get there before all the good seats were taken. I didn’t want to get stuck with the obstructed spot again.”

“The good seats disappear fast,” asserted George, “so you gotta get there early.”

Tredinnick scratched his jaw. “What is your definition of a good seat?”

They sidled slow, bewildered glances at each other, as if they’d never bothered to think about that before.

He made a doodle on the page. “I’ll note your response as a question mark. How soon after the lady claimed the good seat this morning did the rest of you arrive?”

“A couple of minutes,” said Dick Teig.

“More like a couple of seconds,” argued Dick Stolee. “The rest of us were neck-and-neck in the hallway and gaining fast, but our suitcases slowed us down a bit.”

Tredinnick made another notation. “So all of you arrived within a few minutes of each other?”

“More like seconds,” grumbled Dick Stolee.

“For the purposes of my timeline, I have you sitting down at approximately six o’clock. How soon after you sat down did you see Ms. Holloway exit through the lounge on her way to the spa?”

“Couple of minutes,” said Dick Teig.

“It was not,” argued Helen. “You were going on about websites that buy gold doubloons for a good fifteen minutes before we ever saw that girl.”

George rubbed his forehead. “You sure it wasn’t longer than that?”

“Seemed a lot longer,” droned Grace.

Dick folded his arms across his chest. “Well, it only felt like a couple of minutes to me.”

“That’s because the only time you find conversation worthwhile is when you’re doing the talking and everyone else is doing the listening,” chided Helen.

“Show of hands,” Osmond piped up. “How many people—no, wait. Emily says we can’t vote anymore. Forget I said that.”

Tredinnick’s pen suddenly snapped in two, shooting out from between his fingers and flying off in different directions like tiny missiles. He looked as if he might be counting to ten as he watched the pieces land on the floor. “Let’s try this again, shall we? Did any of you see Ms. Holloway leave the inn this morning?”

“Everyone at the table saw her,” affirmed Tilly, “except Osmond. He forgot his eyeglasses back in the room.”

“She waved to us,” recalled Lucille.

“And she told us not to eat all the food before she got back,” added George.

Tredinnick actually smiled. “Brilliant. So you saw Ms. Holloway enter the lounge sometime after six o’clock. Did any of you see Caroline Goodfriend trek through the lounge on her way to join Ms. Holloway in the spa?”

Eyes shifted. Brows lowered.

“I don’t remember seeing her at all,” admitted Dick Stolee.

“Me neither,” said Dick Teig.

“I saw a flash of something in the corner of my eye,” Lucille revealed, “but I figured it was the tail end of an optical migraine.”

“Did she come through before or after the second helping of bacon arrived?” Grace asked Tredinnick. “Because when Jackie set that platter on the table, it was a free-for-all. The fellas wouldn’t have noticed if a bomb had gone off in their shorts.”

I didn’t want to quibble about the guys’ level of unawareness, but even they might have noticed that.

“I saw Caroline,” Tilly affirmed with ironclad conviction. “I believe she left a good thirty to forty minutes after Heather, just as we were finishing up our meal. And a few minutes later, she ran back through the lounge as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.”

“To my room,” I spoke up. “To tell me about Heather. And that was precisely seven o’clock because I checked my wristwatch.”

“Surprising it was on your wrist and not in your suitcase,” Tredinnick quipped.

“Yeah. I didn’t get that memo.”

He scanned his notes. “So most of you can verify that Ms. Holloway left the inn sometime after six o’clock. One of you saw Ms. Goodfriend leave thirty to forty minutes later. The majority of you were too preoccupied with bacon to notice anything. One of you thought Ms. Goodfriend’s jaunt through the lounge was a visual anomaly. And you haven’t a clue what time you actually ate breakfast because you finished eating at least a full half hour before you were scheduled to begin. Does that cover everything?”

Heads bobbing. Satisfied smiles.

“Mrs. Sippel,” Tredinnick’s gaze riveted on Nana, “none of your bloggers were at the table when you started serving much earlier than you’d indicated, were they?”

“Nope. And I can’t say’s I blame ’em. They probably got wind that all the good seats was gone.”

“So how did you plan to deal with that?”

“I set vittles aside and stuck ’em in that oven what stays warm all the time. I wasn’t gonna let them folks starve. Emily wouldn’t abide that.”

“Constable?” Caroline wandered into the lounge, looking wobbly-legged, dazed, and in need of an arm to lean on. I hopped out of my chair and hurried to her side.

“Are you okay?” I circled my hand around her forearm.

“It’s the pill. I took more than the recommended dosage, so I’ve got spaghetti legs.” She gestured toward Tredinnick. “Before I conk out, I wanted to ask you about Heather’s belongings. Did you find her neck wallet in the spa?”

“If it’s there, the evidence team will collect it.”

“Okay, but…just to let you know. The fob-seal that she and Kathryn Crabbe have been haggling over? Heather stashed it inside her neck wallet before she left the room this morning, so you should probably have your people double-check to make sure it’s still there. It’s probably worth something.”

“Thank you for that. Excuse me for a moment.” While Tredinnick limped into the dining room to make a call, I ushered Caroline back to her room and helped her into bed, taking note of the straight-back chair she was probably using to secure her door.

“Be sure to lock up when I leave. Okay?” I didn’t want to make things any easier for Spencer and August than they already were.

She nodded groggily, offering scant proof that she’d follow through.

“Are you going to be alert enough to wedge your chair under the doorknob, Caroline?”

She responded with a sublime facial twitch that might have developed into a smile if her eyes hadn’t fluttered shut first.

“Caroline?”

Her pills had obviously kicked in big-time because she was dead to the world.

Reluctant to remove her key from her room, I nonetheless grabbed it off the nightstand and exited into the hall, locking the door behind me. Wally could slip into her room with his master key and replace it on her nightstand before she even realized it was gone.

I hurried back to the lounge to find that Constable Tredinnick’s phone call had set off another alarm bell in his investigation.

“The fob-seal that was purportedly in Ms. Holloway’s neck wallet is missing,” he announced as I walked into the room. He lasered a look at me. “Where do I find Kathryn Crabbe?”