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WINSTON RAN INTO THE main house and almost crashed into Alex.
“Whoa, don’t break anything,” Alex said, gesturing to the exquisite-looking ceramic pieces distributed around his home. The main house was more of a museum than a living space, with its bells, whistles, and gongs. Modern art and fancy sculptures lurked around every corner.
“I’m running out of time,” Winston said, sprinting toward the bathroom.
“No worries. The officiant’s not even here yet.”
“He isn’t?” Winston shook his head and grimaced.
He entered the bathroom, finding it done up in an elegant theme of black and white. The polished floor looked like a giant chessboard. Two obsidian vessel bowls lurked over a swirled marble, chocolate-and-vanilla-scented countertop. And this was only the guest bathroom.
The wedding tux hung on the hook where he’d left it. All pressed, it glowed an unworldly white. It was a replica of Tuxedo Mario’s in Super Mario Odyssey—but obviously much cooler.
Before he had a chance to put it on, a knock sounded at the door. Probably Alex. Winston opened it. “Did the officiant finally show up?”
“Huh?” Orchid Chan stood before him with a giant potted flower in her hands.
“Oh, I thought you were someone else.”
Orchid pushed her way in, then closed the door behind her.
He gulped. What she was planning on doing? She had killed Fort for his rudeness. And Ming for what—his unwillingness to retire?
Winston backed up against the bathroom counter, and Orchid stepped even closer to him.
“This plant is my namesake,” she said. “I want to thank you.”
He eyed the ceramic pot the flower was in. It seemed heavy enough to crack a skull. How ironic to be beaned by a flower with the killer’s same name.
“Thank me?” he whispered. For stumbling onto her wicked ways?
“You were a witness to my family’s suffering.” She lifted the pot up, and Winston flinched.
She edged closer . . . and placed it on the marble top next to him. Could it be some kind of subtle threat?
Winston scrambled to think of a way to make sure she thought he was on her side. “I just want true resolution for you. Peace.”
She nodded and reached into her purse. Did she have a vicious nail file in there like Carmen? Or something deadlier? She yanked out . . . her phone. “Have to text the kids. They’re in the Mystery Shack. Don’t want them worrying. Now I’m the only parent they have.”
As she sent the message, Winston recoiled. “But you did it.”
“What are you talking about?” She peered at him, confused. Her phone dangled in her hand.
“You made Ming, er, go away.” He remembered what the woman at the help desk had said at the hospital. She’d been sorry that Orchid had—
“Yes, I did pull the plug.” Orchid’s lips twisted. “His wishes . . .”
Winston tried towering over her. “How could you kill Ming? Aren’t your marriage vows for better or for worse?” He himself would repeat those very lines soon.
“My husband fell,” Orchid said, her eyes locked onto Winston. “The stairs were too slippery.”
Winston leaned in. “And what about his pills? Moved so he forgot to take his much-needed blood thinner.”
She stared at him, not blinking.
“You knew,” he said.
Orchid started crying. Fat tears ran down her face. She didn’t bother wiping them away.
He cocked his head and reconsidered her weeping figure. Had it been cold-hearted murder on her part? “Maybe you didn’t want Ming to die, just get injured? Hurt enough to push him toward retirement.”
Orchid wiped her eyes with her sleeve. He wondered if the tears would trickle down into her phone and crash its system. “No, the missing pills were . . . a mistake.”
“Really? And what about the ramekin?”
She gave him a blank look.
“The little container of peanut sauce you slipped into a Ziploc? Evidence of you causing Fort’s death.”
Orchid shook her head several times. “I know she didn’t mean to. It was a prank. And why should she get in trouble for that? Plus, I thought Fort would get better . . .”
“She?” He didn’t think Orchid was speaking about herself in the third person. She could have only meant one person. “Viv did it?”
Orchid’s shoulders slumped. “All a mistake. The sauce, she probably meant it as a joke. Like when she swapped the sugar with salt for his coffee.”
“You saw your daughter dump in the peanut sauce?”
Orchid shivered. “No, I found the ram-a-thingy left with a stack of dirty dishes. It had to be her, right? So I took away the container.”
Had it been Viv? She’d been sitting across from Fort. With the wide rectangular tables at Sambal, she would’ve needed to lunge across the wooden surface to slip in the peanut sauce. Winston said, “Maybe Viv wasn’t to blame . . .”
Orchid continued speaking as if she hadn’t heard Winston. “And the pills. Viv was responsible for those, but Google docs are so complex. Maybe she misread the column.”
While she babbled on, Winston thought, Was the case really that complicated? He’d already established that Viv had nothing to gain. And even if Orchid had offed her husband, it wouldn’t do to kill the successor, too. That would just make more work for her.
Occam’s Razor. It was like he’d told Gaffey. The simplest solution worked the best. Who would stand to gain if those two died?
Orchid kept talking. “Why can’t the medication list be on paper? Everyone always adds to the Google doc, changes stuff. It messes everything up—”
Winston gripped her arm. He had a hunch about the killer’s identity, and this would confirm it. Pointing to Orchid’s phone, he said, “Can you access that Google doc for me?”
She pulled it up, and Winston saw the list of medications for the previous week. In black and white, the blood thinner had been moved over to the end of the week. It’d been recopied repeatedly. And the document had tracked the user who’d changed the medication distribution.
Winston showed the person’s name to Orchid, and she blanched. “But that says—”
The door burst open.