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I grabbed a life preserver ring from a hook on the wall and jumped into the pool with it, swimming over to the body. I flipped the body over and saw it was Scott Haynsworth. I treaded water as I held onto both the life preserver and Scott and then swam for the side of the pool. I heard Luna yell out to me and run over to the side of the pool.
“Help me get him out,” I said, gasping. I shoved Scott up from the water and Luna reached down and pulled him out at the same time.
“Is he dead?” asked Luna shakily.
“Don’t know. Run, get some help,” I said, still breathless.
I tried to shake Scott awake, saying his name loudly, but there was no response. I also saw his head was bloodied. I tilted his head to the side for any water to drain away, then I turned it to the center. I tried to clear his airway, laying him on his back and tilting his chin and head back. I looked at his chest as I put my head close to his mouth to feel or hear breathing, but there was nothing.
Luna came back with some of the others and I started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions. After a minute, I tried to feel for a pulse and felt nothing.
Grace took over at this point, then Kyle, but there were no results.
“I think he’s gone,” I said quietly.
Grace, who’d been hovering nearby, sat back on her heels with a defeated expression. “I called 911,” she said dully. “They should be here any moment.”
I started shivering uncontrollably and Kyle strode to the cabinet in the corner and pulled out towels and one of the robes for me.
Grace said softly, “What happened, Ann?”
I said, “I was meeting Luna for our morning swim. I stretched for a few minutes because I was the first one downstairs.”
Luna winced. “It took me longer to get ready this morning.”
“Then I thought I’d go ahead and get into the pool and get adjusted to the water temperature. That’s when I saw Scott.” Finally, my shivering had eased up and my teeth had stopped chattering.
Kyle asked, “He was floating in the pool?”
I nodded. “Face down.”
Everyone was quiet for a few moments after hearing this. Scott could have been in the pool most of the night. Who knew how long he’d been floating like that?
“What happened to his head?” asked Kyle, his voice sounding a little strangled.
Luna said, “It looks like he was hit.”
We heard sirens approaching and Grace stood up. “I’ll greet them out front.”
The EMTs came in first, hurrying over to Scott. After several minutes, it was clear to them that nothing could be done.
A couple of minutes later, Burton, the Whitby police chief, walked into the pool room. I relaxed when I saw him. He had a very solid, comforting presence. He was a big guy with a receding hairline, a steady gaze, and currently a very concerned expression. One of the EMTs spoke with him for a moment and he nodded and then turned to the rest of us.
“Hey, everybody,” he said firmly. “I know this has been a shock. But I need you all to move out of this room. I passed through a living room on the way in—maybe wait for me in there?”
We all numbly nodded and silently filed out. Grace led us into the big living room and turned on the gas fire since my shivering had started up again despite the warmth of the fluffy towel. She walked to the kitchen and returned with a pot of coffee and a tray of cups, sugar, and cream.
Twenty minutes later, more police officers arrived and a few guys in forensics suits. Burton must have made phone calls to the state police, as well.
Grace gazed blankly at the different authorities as they walked by. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she murmured.
Roz reached over and gave her a hug. “He probably just hit his head on the side of the pool when he went in.”
Grace shook her head. “How would he have been able to do that? Going in head-first?”
“He was doing some shallow diving for a while,” said Roz.
I agreed with Grace. From the spot on his head, I couldn’t figure how he’d have gotten that injury in a natural way. It was on the back of his head. Unless Scott was trying to attempt a back dive, there was just no way he could have gotten that cut. And there wasn’t a diving board.
Kyle said in a low voice, “They’re going to ask us questions. They’ll think one of us was involved.”
That seemed very likely. We were all silent again. I could definitely see how someone in our group might have wanted to permanently get rid of Scott. He’d behaved badly the entire time he’d been here and had had spats with nearly everyone.
Roz was still determined to believe it had all been an accident of some kind. “Maybe not. After all, he was drinking a lot. I mean a lot. He could have staggered around the pool and slipped or something, like I said. Let’s wait and see what happens.”
We were all quiet again. Then I said, “Shouldn’t someone tell Kelly?”
Grace and Roz froze and then looked at each other.
Roz said, “This is going to kill her, especially how they ended things. Maybe we should let her just sleep.”
Grace shook her head. “Ann is right. Kelly should know. I don’t think she’d thank us for keeping her in the dark about Scott’s death.”
Roz shook her head and then winced as if her head hurt.
“I’ll do it,” said Grace quietly.
I was glad someone would, because I had the feeling if the police were going to be questioning us, they were definitely going to want to talk to Kelly. She knew Scott better than anyone—and she’d been arguing with him before his death.
Burton joined us again, looking grim. “Sorry for the wait, guys. I know this must be a huge shock for you. We are going to need to take statements from everybody. He looked at Grace. “Is this your home?”
She nodded, looking pale.
“Is there a quiet spot where we can speak privately with everyone here?” asked Burton.
She nodded again and stood up, looking a little shaky on her feet. “My study is right off of this room. Will that work?” She led him over to it and Burton pulled another chair inside.
He looked over at me. “Ann, could I speak with you first?”
I followed him to the study, which looked more like a mini-library. There were books lining the walls from floor to ceiling. Ordinarily, my first instinct would have been to peruse the shelves. Grace had a mahogany desk in the space and a Persian rug. I sat down in a leather armchair.
Burton sighed. “So what’s going on here? Can you sketch it all out for me so I have some direction with my questions with everyone? What’s the set-up?”
“Grace Armstrong, who just helped you set up the room, is the hostess. This is a sort of housewarming party for her . . . she wanted to introduce friends to her new home and relax.”
Burton nodded. “And you’re friends with her.”
I shook my head. “Actually, I just met her. She was open to meeting new people and wanted Luna to have someone to hang out with, I think.”
Burton frowned. “So Luna is friends with Grace.”
“I wouldn’t say they were the type of friends who actually hung out together. Luna knows Grace from when she grew up here. Luna’s here mainly because her cousin Roz is friends with Grace and the rest of the guests.”
Burton started taking notes.
I continued. “So the rest of the guests knew each other when they were in school together. It sounds like they were pretty close back then, but Grace moved away and just recently came back to Whitby.”
“With a good deal of money,” muttered Burton with a glance around the well-appointed study. “And the victim?”
“Is he a victim, then? He was definitely murdered? We wondered if maybe he’d tried diving in and hit his head, was knocked unconscious, and then drowned.”
Burton shook his head. “That explanation could have worked if we hadn’t spotted the bloody champagne bottle. Sadly, someone thought to wipe it clean of fingerprints.”
I stared at him. “So he was murdered, then.”
“Any ideas why?”
I nodded slowly. “His name is Scott Haynsworth. Unfortunately, he was a pretty difficult guest this weekend.”
“In what way?”
“First off, he and his girlfriend were squabbling the whole time. Her name is Kelly and she left the party last night because she’d had enough. Scott was drinking too much and generally being obnoxious. Running his mouth and flirting with someone else,” I said.
Burton’s brows knit together. “Flirting with who?”
I almost smiled, but carefully kept my mouth from turning up at the corners. I knew Burton had a warm spot for Luna and hoped it wasn’t her. He never seemed to be able to make too much progress with her, though, and she appeared to have no idea that he was interested in her at all.
“Felicity. I think her name is Felicity Patton. She works at one of the big banks.”
“In Whitby?” Burton’s eyebrows flew up his wide forehead.
“No, she works remotely and flies a lot.”
Burton carefully added more notes to his notebook. “And was she receptive to his flirting?”
“Not at all. She was basically avoiding him the whole time. But then, she’s also friends with Kelly and wouldn’t have wanted to make her upset,” I said.
“Who else was he at odds with?”
I thought about this for a moment. “Well, Kyle wasn’t happy with him and Kyle is supposed to be one of his best friends. They were partners in Scott’s business a long time ago and that partnership apparently dissolved at some point. But the reason I thought Kyle was upset with Scott was because Scott was flirting with Felicity. It seemed really obvious to me that Kyle held a torch for Felicity. Maybe even since they were in school together.”
Burton jotted down more notes and then smiled at me. “You’ve been very observant during this crazy house party. Didn’t you drink at all?”
I chuckled. “Sure, I did. Just not as much as everybody else did.”
“Well, judging from all the hungover looking faces in there, they more than made up for the amount you didn’t drink. Anybody else? Who am I missing? It sounds like the guy riled everybody in the house up.”
I said, “Well, there’s Roz and Grace.”
Burton nodded. “You said Roz was a relative of Luna’s?”
“Her cousin. And she was upset with both Kelly and Scott, but mostly Scott. It seemed like she was sick of the whole relationship between the two of them. She was frustrated that Kelly was dating this guy who seemed very toxic for her. They apparently had this on-again, off-again relationship and Roz was ready for it to be off again for good. She was fussing at Scott for his bad behavior most of the time—just looking out for Kelly.”
Burton said, “And Grace?”
I considered this. “That’s something I don’t know much about. But there’s something there. I was waking up from a nap on the boat at the time.”
Burton’s eyebrows flew up again. “Boat?”
“It was more of a yacht. But Grace rented it.”
Burton gave a low whistle. “She doesn’t seem to have a cash flow problem. But go ahead, I’m sorry. You were saying you were waking up from a nap on the boat.”
“That’s right. I had these mirrored sunglasses on so I opened my eyes but no one would be able to see I was awake. Scott and Grace were arguing. Well, it was more that Grace was arguing with Scott and Scott was acting self-satisfied.”
“Could you make out what they were saying?”
“From what I could gather, Scott was saying that he knew some sort of information about Grace. He seemed to be threatening to disclose it at the party if she didn’t do something.”
Burton nodded. “Maybe he wanted her to pay him money. And why wouldn’t he? He could easily see how well-off she was. Maybe that tempted him to try to blackmail her over whatever he knew about her.”
I shrugged. “Who knows what he knew? Maybe it was even something from way back when they were teenagers or something. But Grace has her image now to think of. She wouldn’t want to have that blown right when she moves back to her hometown.”
“How did Grace respond to his threats?”
I said, “She was really cold to him. But she said she’d ‘get it’ for him, whatever ‘it’ was.”
Burton nodded again. “She was planning on going through with it, then. Or maybe she thought it would be easier just to get rid of him. Blackmail is hard to get out from under.”
“The thing is that everything I’ve heard about Scott makes it sound like he was a pretty successful guy. I mean, he had his own business and everything. I can’t really understand what would make him want to blackmail Grace.”
“Maybe his business has taken a hit lately,” said Burton. “That’s something we’ll be looking into, for sure.”
We heard a lot of noise from the direction of the front door. Then we could hear the sound of sobbing.
Burton sighed. “That must be the girlfriend. We had an officer run over there to give her the news. We were going to go to her for an interview, but I guess she decided she wanted to come here, instead.”
“They parted on such bad terms that maybe it makes her feel better to be here,” I said. “Are you going to speak with her now?”
Burton shook his head. “Not while she’s in that state. I’ll speak to her after she’s calmed down a little.”
He stood up and I did, too.
“Thanks for all your help, Ann. This really helps me to ask better questions.”
I winced a little. “I guess everyone will figure out that I was the one who helped you direct the questions better.”
He chuckled. “You just gave me better perspective, that’s all.”
I hesitated. “I have a feeling I’m going to be grilled once I set foot out of the study. Is there anything I shouldn’t say? Are you planning on revealing to everyone that it’s murder?”
“Definitely. But I want to see everyone’s reaction and that won’t happen if everybody leaves the study and fills the others in. So how about if I announce it to the group now and you help me to see how everybody reacts?”
I followed him out the study door and he cleared his throat. Everyone abruptly stopped their conversations.
Burton said, “Thanks for your patience as I conduct these interviews. Since you’re all here, I wanted to inform the group that we’re treating Scott Haynsworth’s death as a murder.”
There were gasps around the room.
“But how?” stammered Grace. “We thought it looked as if he stumbled and hit his head on the way into the pool.”
“It could have happened that way and I can understand your thinking that. But our team found a bloody champagne bottle that appears to be the murder weapon.”
Luna gave a small shriek before covering her mouth apologetically.