"What the hell are you doing in my room?" Jack Tupper III’s form filled the doorway and blocked the sunlight that streamed in from the hallway. He also blocked my exit.
"Housekeeping. Just dropping off some toiletries." My face flushed as I lamely held up my hand. It was painfully obvious that I was nowhere near the bathroom. I hadn’t even anticipated that Jack might return. He must have forgotten something.
"No need." He waved his hand towards the doorway. "I think you'd better go."
I lurched towards the door, dropping the shampoo and soap on the bureau as I brushed past him.
I slammed the door behind me and didn't look back.
I raced down the stairs, into the dining room and straight to Sheriff Gates' table. I noticed with dismay that Tonya was seated again. I simply couldn't wait any longer. "I need to talk to you."
Tonya Plant's eyes narrowed as they locked on mine.
She knew I was on to something. I felt a sudden stab of fear as I recalled Hazel and Pearl's warning. I should have waited until the sheriff was alone, but under the circumstances, how could I? Jack was probably getting rid of the tire iron right now.
"What is it?" He seemed to notice my anxiety.
"It's confidential." I glanced at Tonya, who by now was on high alert. That only meant one thing to me. She was involved in her husband's murder and suspected I was about to talk about it. What else could be urgent enough to interrupt the sheriff's interview? "Can we talk in the kitchen?"
He glanced at Tonya, who nodded. "Give me five minutes."
*****
Ten minutes later Tyler Gates faced me across the kitchen bistro table.
He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. "This is all confidential, but a tire iron fits better with the coroner's findings."
"Should you be telling all me this? Don't forget that I'm the press."
"Telling you is part of my strategy. I'm hoping you can publish a story that will flush out the real killers. Somebody in town knows something."
"So you're ruling out Aunt Pearl and her cane?"
He shook his head. "Nothing and nobody is ruled out, but it was obvious to me that the cane wasn't heavy enough to do the kind of damage we saw on Plant's skull."
I shuddered. "You'd better hurry before Jack destroys the evidence." He had been awfully careless—or maybe overconfident—to simply throw the tire iron in the trash can. Whoever cleaned the room—meaning Aunt Pearl, the very person being framed—was certain to notice it. But apparently Jack thought we were all too stupid to make the connection. Or maybe he hadn’t had time to dispose of it.
"The crime scene techs are on their way back from Shady Creek," Tyler said. "I called them back when I came in here."
"Tonya didn't hear you, I hope."
"No, she left in a hurry just after you."
Great. I had to alert Aunt Pearl and Hazel that Tonya was on to us. "Is she a suspect? She is the spouse, after all. She doesn't seem too heartbroken if you ask me."
"Everyone's a suspect until the case is solved," he said.
"She's involved somehow. You know about their affair?"
His eyes widened. "We're on it. The question is how do you know about their relationship?"
I fidgeted as I thought up an excuse. I couldn't mention that my ghost grandma had staked out Jack's room. "We saw Tonya sneaking into Jack's room."
"And you think that is proof enough of their affair? You've got to have more than that."
I did have more but nothing I could tell him. "Tonya and Jack are business partners. Jack's trying to scare us into selling our land to build a Travel Unraveled resort. Sebastien was against the idea. I think that's why they killed him."
The sheriff fell silent while he digested my statement. I got the sense he was debating how much to tell me.
"There's more." I pulled the Walmart receipt from my pocket and handed it to him as I described the Gatorade bottle in the trash. “I don't think he was drunk. Tonya poisoned him with antifreeze but then got Jack to hit him with the tire iron. When he died from the poison, she could still pin the murder on Jack." The scapegoat idea came to me as I spoke. It made perfect sense that Tonya would frame Jack. That way she could keep all the spoils for herself.
In my sensory-deprived hungry state, everything came together with a shocking clarity that had escaped me until now.
Tyler Gates nodded. "That ties in with the coroner's report. Sebastien Plant was subject to a lot of blunt force trauma, exactly the type of injuries you would get from a tire iron. But strangely enough, he didn't bleed as much as he should have."
"You mean he might have already been dead when he was hit?" I remembered seeing something similar on Forensic Files.
His eyes widened in surprise. "Yes."
I flashed back to the Gatorade bottle in Tonya's room. "Did the autopsy show signs of poisoning?"
Tyler's eyes clouded over as he picked up his phone and punched in some numbers. "That's exactly what we need to find out."