I knew exactly where I was when I awoke Saturday morning and I wished it wasn’t so. The first thing I did was look out the window to check the sky, hoping for a change. It seemed to be a little brighter and at least there were no slashes of rain on the glass. I would have liked to pull the covers up and gone back to sleep, but food was the only thing that the group seemed to be pleased with and they would be expecting breakfast. It was funny that I—the person who had relied on instant oatmeal and frozen dinners—had become the center of creating the meals.
At least I had clean clothes. Even with my concocted rain suit when I went dumpster diving, my leggings had gotten some ick on them. I hadn’t explained how it happened to Cloris, but she let me go wild in the gift shop again. There were no more leggings and I’d had to settle for navy blue sweatpants that were a little small and a maroon sweatshirt that was way too big. Both were emblazoned with the Vista Del Mar name and logo.
Lucinda laughed when I came out of the bathroom in my outfit. We made an odd sight as we went to the dining hall. She was wearing the Eileen Fisher outfit she had offered me and had on makeup. My hair was pulled up into a topknot and there was a flash of my ankles below the too-short sweatpants.
Crystal joined us in the kitchen. She gratefully tied an apron over her gray outfit. “And I thought the beige was bad. Now I look like the sky.”
Part of me wanted to tell them about my escapade the night before, but a larger part told me to keep it to myself. Audrey might think I knew something, but she probably felt safe now that she had thrown the stuff into the dumpster, never considering the lengths I would go to to find it. All I wanted to do was keep things even until Lieutenant Borgnine could get there and take over.
We had managed to find food to create the impromptu meals so far, but we were running low on the basics. Lucinda found some sausages in the bottom of the chest freezer. After the coffee cake I made and the pan of scrambled eggs sprinkled with cheese that Crystal and I concocted, there were barely any eggs left.
Cleanup had gotten easier. They all scraped their dishes and put them directly in the dishwasher. I had made an extra coffee cake to leave in the café. I was setting up air pots with coffee and hot water when someone walked in.
“Oh,” I said in surprise when I looked at the door and saw the guy who was staying in the cottage.
“There’s no one at the counter. I was looking for some breakfast. And some clean towels.” He asked in a nice way and I felt bad realizing that when we’d done the towel exchange we had not thought about him. I explained that breakfast was over but offered him coffee cake and a cappuccino.
“I’m getting pretty good with the espresso machine. I guess there is a silver lining to every cloud. If I wasn’t stuck here with no one to stop me, I never would have gotten a chance to use the machine. So, are you game?”
“Sure. It sounds great.” I was surprised when he accepted my offer for him to sit. “It would be nice to drink it here. I’m pretty sick of my own company.”
I smiled at him as I loaded the coffee grounds in the machine. “You are welcome to come to the dining hall. You could even volunteer your services to help with a meal.”
The long hair and beard made it hard to read his expression, but there was light in his eyes. “I’m not going that far.” He punctuated it with a chuckle. “Any word on when we’ll be able to get out of here?”
I shrugged as I steamed the milk. “Hopefully soon. At least it’s not raining.”
While I finished the drink and cut him some coffee cake, I asked him about himself. After so much time alone, he seemed glad to talk. He was from San Jose and had a job in tech that was too boring to talk about. Then he asked about me. That rarely happened when I was putting on a retreat. It was always spotlight on the group I was responsible for. It was even more so this time with all that had happened. I handed him his drink and pulled out the stool next to him to join him and drink the cappuccino I had made for myself.
I gave him the short bio of my assorted jobs and move to Cadbury, which ended up with me inheriting the yarn retreat business.
“Working for a detective must have been interesting,” he said.
Somehow, I ended up telling him how much I liked it and that I was planning to go back to it.
“Why leave Cadbury?” he asked. “It seems pretty dreamy if you ask me.”
“It was until my boyfriend took up with someone else,” I said.
“Understood. Been there myself,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“To getting out of here,” I said, holding up my cup to make a toast.
“You can say that again,” he said before taking a sip of foam-covered drink. I was tempted to repeat what I just said, but accepted that it was way too corny. I invited him to join the yoga class that Lisa was going to give in the main room, but he declined, saying he was not ready for that much company.
Lisa was organizing the group when I went into the larger room. “Is that everybody?” she asked as she got ready to start.
“Audrey’s not here,” Mindy said, checking over the group. “I didn’t see her at breakfast. Maybe she decided to sleep in.”
I felt myself go on high alert. What if she had found a way out? I offered to find her and left them to begin the sun salutes while I rushed off to the Tides building. I knocked, and when there was no answer, tried the door. I had a bad feeling as it pushed open.
At first, I thought the room was empty, and then I saw there was someone in the bed. Mindy must have been right about her sleeping in. After the episode with the disappearing evidence, I had wanted to keep a low profile with her. I thought about backing out of the room before she noticed me. But as an afterthought, it seemed okay to remind her about the yoga class. I called out her name and brought up the class, but there was no response from her. I repeated it with the same result. Finally, I touched her arm. It was cold to the touch. I ran to get Sammy.
The yoga class was in the midst of doing a pose called downward dog, which amounted to turning the body into an upside-down V shape. The only part of Sammy that was accessible to tap for his attention was his butt. Instead, I called out to him and said it was urgent. My tone of voice got everyone’s attention and they followed us back to Tides, hanging in the hall outside Audrey’s door while Sammy and I went inside to check on her.
Sammy swallowed hard before he turned to me and offered a solemn shake of his head. “Are you sure?” I whispered. “What about CPR?”
He shook his head again. “It’s too late for that. She’s dead.”
Even with the whispering, the group in the hall heard us and someone called out that she must have died of a broken heart. Sammy shook his head again.
“I did a stint in pathology,” he said, trying to keep his voice low. “It looks to me like she suffocated.” He pointed to red dots on her face around her eyes and on her ears. “It’s called petechiae and is a sign of asphyxiation.” He did a quick survey of the room and pointed to a pillow on the floor. “Don’t quote me, but that’s probably what did it.”
“You mean, somebody killed her with that?” I asked, thinking how it looked just like an ordinary pillow that had lost a bit of its feather fill and hardly a murder weapon. He nodded. With a bad feeling of déjà vu, I took out my phone and, trying to be as discreet as possible, began to take pictures of the crime scene.
Sammy and I came out of the room and shut the door. Despite their clamoring, we did not offer any details of what Sammy had noticed. All they understood was that she was dead. The chance for the yoga class to pick up after an interruption like this was hopeless, and I herded them back to the Lodge pitching another crochet workshop, as if not mentioning Audrey would make them forget what they saw.
The only enthusiasm came from the four who were actually there for a yarn craft weekend.
Leon was the worst grumbler, but then he relented. “What else am I going to do.”
Crystal came out of the café with Madeleine and Milton, who had chosen another cup of coffee instead of the yoga class. I pulled them aside and gave them the news. “Not someone dead, again,” Madeleine said. Milton gave her arm a supportive pat and thankfully did not ask for details. Crystal offered me a sympathetic nod as I explained the need to get the group busy crocheting while I took care of things.
Cloris had figured something was up when she saw me interrupt the yoga class, but stayed at her position behind the registration counter. She was trying to be stoic, but her expression dimmed as I approached the counter. She must have sensed that I had some bad news.
“Do you want to call Lieutenant Borgnine?” I said after telling her Sammy’s assessment of Audrey.
She shook her head rather vehemently.
“Please. You do it,” she said. “You’re so much calmer than I am. And you were the one to find her.”
I went into one of the phone booths and shut the door before I placed the call. There were endless rings at the police station before someone answered. I was surprised at the female voice, but then realized she was one of the two women on the force.
I asked to speak to Lieutenant Borgnine, but she insisted on knowing why before she would put me through. “There’s been a death at Vista Del Mar,” I said. I couldn’t believe it when she almost mirrored what Madeleine had said. “A deceased person, again?”
There were no more questions and she put me through to him. “What happened this time? Is it weather-related?” he asked in a tired, gruff voice.
I gave him the facts with no editorial comments other than to pass on that Sammy—though I referred to him as Dr. Glickner—had said she appeared to have died from asphyxiation.
“We could move her to the spot with her husband,” I said, dreading the whole process of the housekeepers’ cart and using trash bags as body bags.
“Hold off on that,” he said. “Leave everything be. We have heavy equipment on its way and the plan is to get things partially cleared by late today.” There was a pause. “And don’t even think about finding the perpetrator. And don’t mention you think her death was homicide to the rest of the guests. They might panic if they thought there was a killer among them.”
“There might be a connection between the two deaths,” I said, but he cut me off.
“We’ll take care of everything. Just try to keep everyone calm until we clear the road.”
“Sure,” I said, wishing he could tell me how to do it.