Holly and Homicide (12 page)

He shook his head. “Your opinion of him is colored by your history.” He glanced around as if to ensure he couldn’t be overheard. “I don’t trust him in the least, Erin. If I didn’t know that you were his alibi the night of the murder, he’d be my number-one suspect.”

“You dislike him
that
much, from a ten-minute conversation? What on earth did he say to you?”

“That he wants to make his fortune in the next five years, then return to New York City where he can ‘live large.’ The man doesn’t care about anything but making money and gaining power. Frankly, I can’t imagine the two of you ever having been a couple in the first place. He probably hit on you just because of your looks.”

“And all this time I thought it was my personality and charm that captured his interest.”

Steve shrugged. “No offense, Erin. I’m just saying … the guy’s really shallow.”

“Your attitude is getting on my nerves, Sullivan. Why are you telling me this?”

He seemed taken aback and ushered me to a deserted corner. “Isn’t that obvious?” he asked, lowering his voice. “Because I’m worried about you, and you have a blind spot where Cameron Baker is concerned! We have to be on the lookout. Angie Woolf was killed on this property a few days ago.”

“But we
know
the killer wasn’t Cameron,” I replied in a harsh whisper. “I saw him drive up, and he was with me from that point on.”

“Even if he’s innocent of the physical murder, he might have played a part in it.”

“Oh, come on, Sullivan! You don’t honestly believe he hired a hit man! I just don’t get why you think you should be judging someone I knew ten years ago. And who, after a couple of weeks from now, I’ll most likely never see again!”

“Because he’s here
now
, and I think Cameron’s bad news and should be avoided!”

“You’ve made your point more than enough times, Sullivan,” I fired back at him. “There’s nothing like having your boyfriend lead you to a quiet, dimly lit nook of the room just to chastise you! You’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to go mingle with our other guests now.”

I marched into the dining room, refreshed my eggnog, then continued past Sullivan and into the living room, where a couple of dozen people were milling around. I walked up to a small circle of women and introduced myself. They were more than pleasant, but very soon, I was distracted by a pair of unsupervised young boys—five or
six years old—who were fidgeting with the drapes. I had visions of them trying to scale the walls with the curtains as climbing ropes and asked, “Do any of you know those boys?”

“’Fraid so,” one woman replied. “We call them Dennis the Menace One and Two.”

“Their parents probably snuck out the back door a long time ago,” another added. “They have a terrible habit of doing that.”

“Don’t they, though?” the first woman agreed. “Remember when they did that at my Halloween party?”

I set down my glass on the coffee table and headed toward the boys. In remarkable unison, both youngsters jumped up and grabbed hold of separate drape panels. I raced over and caught the drapery rod as it fell, barely preventing the heavy rod from clonking both boys on the head.

“Hey, you two! These curtains are not climbing ropes! The curtain rods cannot support your weight! Where are your parents?”

“I dunno,” they said in unison.

“We’re going to go locate them right—”

“What are you doing to my sons!” I whirled around to see Ms. Spokesperson shoving her way past a group of onlookers and marching toward the boys and me.

“Your sons just pulled down the draperies and nearly injured themselves in the process.”

“Mathew, Peter, apologize this instant.” Although the words themselves sounded stern, it was a rote delivery, and she was scanning the room for someone to chat with next.

“Sorry,” one said, while the other said, “Star pee.” A truly heartfelt apology, if ever I’d heard one. Their mom, I was certain, heard the insincerity in their apology, but seemed to feel we were now even.

“That’s all right,” I replied somewhat testily. “We can replaster the holes in the wall and rehang the supports for the curtain rod.”

“It was just an accident!” Ms. Spokesperson proclaimed.

“Which is why it’s fortunate that nothing happened that can’t be easily fixed.”

She pursed her lips and shot me a hateful glare. “Come on, boys. Get your coats. It’s time to leave.”

While that trio marched away, I returned to my eggnog, still on the coffee table where I’d abandoned it. A couple of the women I’d been talking with earlier were now grinning at me. Planning to rejoin them, I started to take a sip of my drink, then froze. The contents of my cup suddenly didn’t smell right; it now bore an acrid odor. I turned my back on the women and discreetly sniffed again. I got a distinct whiff this time.

My eggnog smelled like bitter almonds! Cyanide!

M
y heart started hammering in my chest. I’d helped make the first batch of this eggnog myself, and it hadn’t smelled even
remotely
like bitter almonds. Maybe Audrey had added almond flavoring to the second batch, though. I scanned the room, but she was not in the immediate vicinity.

On second thought, could I have been drinking poison all along? My stomach felt queasy. I set my cup down on an end table. I felt dizzy. This must just be my imagination running wild. I couldn’t possibly have missed the aroma earlier.

Maybe my sense of smell was playing tricks on me. I strode into the dining room. The bowl of cranberry nog was half full. I lifted the ladle and took a whiff. No almond scent.

Cameron appeared through the kitchen door and headed toward me. “You look upset. Is something wrong?”

“Maybe.” He was holding a cup of eggnog. “Let me try some of that.” I snatched the plastic cup from his hand and took a quick sip. “I knew it! This tastes fine. And the eggnog in the bowl smells normal, too.” Although part of me knew there was no cause for panic, my stomach was doing flip-flops.

He stared at me as if my face had been turning colors. Maybe it was. “Why are you so—”

I brushed past him. “I have to throw up.”

“Erin?” Cameron called after me as I rushed toward the bathroom. “Are you okay?”

That was what’s known as a stupid question. Suddenly it felt like the temperature had shot up twenty degrees and I was burning up.

Two women were standing next to the door to the downstairs bathroom, waiting their turn. My distress must have been readily apparent because they both backed up. One said, “Go ahead. We can wait.”

I pounded on the door, which was quickly pulled open. I brushed past the startled-looking man as he exited, and raced over to the toilet in the nick of time.

After a minute or so, I pulled myself together and both my breathing and my stomach returned to normal. Linda, my police officer friend, had once told me that cyanide turned a person’s tongue cherry red. I examined my
tongue. It was a dark pink and in no way bore a cherry red hue. After splashing water on my face and using toothpaste on my finger to brush my teeth (and tongue, just on principle), I emerged from the bathroom. Steve was waiting for me by the door, with nobody else around. His eyes were wide and his lips were set in a grim line.

“Good Lord, Erin,” he said quietly. He reached out and caressed my cheek. I got the impression that the caress was meant, in part, to gauge if I had a fever. “What’s going on? I just now overheard some woman I’ve never seen before in my life telling someone
else
I’ve never met that you were in here throwing up. They were speculating that …” He held me at arm’s length and searched my eyes. He whispered, “Are you pregnant?”

“No,” I answered in a harsh whisper, “although those women are undoubtedly still happily spreading rumors to that effect, even as we speak. I was nearly poisoned!”

“What do you—”

“Somebody slipped cyanide into my eggnog. I caught a strange whiff of bitter almonds before I took a sip. I didn’t drink any of it.”

“Thank God,” Steve said, looking pale. “But you got sick to your stomach anyway?”

“Finding out I came so close to getting poisoned did quite a number on me. But there was nothing toxic in my glass when I was drinking from it earlier. For one thing, Linda Delgardio once told me that cyanide turns your tongue bright red.”

He furrowed his brow. “Let me see your tongue.”

A couple was passing by, and the woman gave me a
long look. I gave her a friendly nod. “My tongue is fine,” I told Sullivan under my breath. “I checked.”

“Then just let me verify.”

I sighed, but then dutifully stuck my tongue out at him.

He nodded. “It’s your normal magenta color.”

“More of a dusty rose, really. Not that I’ve held color swatches against it. I’ve got to get my glass back before anyone else takes a sip.” Thank heavens those rambunctious boys already left; they were just the sort who’d view a deserted cup as a chance to have their first taste of alcohol.

“We’ll take your drink to the sheriff’s station and insist that it be analyzed.”

With Steve just a step behind me, I rushed back over to the table where I’d left my glass. I stamped my foot and looked back at Sullivan. “My glass is gone.”

Chiffon was standing not far away. I dashed over to her. “Chiffon. I had a glass of eggnog on the table. Did you take it?”

“No, Erin. Of course not! I’m a celebrity. I can’t risk being seen drinking at parties. Next thing you know, my image is splashed all over the front page of the society sections. And the paparazzi always intentionally take shots where I’m blinking or when—”

“Did you see who
did
take it, then?” Sullivan interrupted.

“It had to be one of the waiters or caterers. That’s their job, after all …to pick up deserted cups and things.”

“It was nearly full,” I told Steve. “Maybe I can recognize the glass in the kitchen.”

“There’s plenty of eggnog in the punch bowl, Erin,”
Chiffon said, clicking her tongue. “It’s really okay to pour yourself some more, you know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.” We rushed into the kitchen. I raced toward a woman wearing a caterer’s uniform—black slacks and a white Oxford shirt—standing at the double sink. She was rinsing out a pair of glasses and slipping them into hot, soapy water. “Damn it all,” I grumbled.

“Is there a problem?” the woman asked.

“Did you pour out a full glass of eggnog just now?”

“I …think so. Why?”

“Let me see if the sink smells funny.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, although she stepped aside.

The water was on full force and there were no traces of the creamy dregs of my drink in the rinsing half of the double sink. I shut off the water. No odor.

I reached into the scalding-hot sink, grabbed a glass, and lifted it to my nose. “Damn! It just smells like dishwashing liquid!”

“Are you with the department of health or something?” the woman asked.

Ignoring the question, I asked: “When you were handling leftover glasses of eggnog, did you smell almonds?”

“No. Why?”

“It’s too late, then. It doesn’t matter. Thanks anyway.”

Steve was speaking in low tones to Audrey, who must have followed us into the kitchen. She shook her head sadly at me.

I walked over to them. “I don’t know what to do.” I looked at Steve. “Should we stop the party? Tell everyone
they need to get tested, in case anyone else’s glass was poisoned?”

“Maybe we should,” he replied.

“Are you absolutely certain your drink was poisoned, Erin?” Audrey asked.

“It smelled wrong … like bitter almonds. But I suppose I’m only ninety-nine percent sure.”

Audrey drummed her fingers against her upper arm. “There’s nothing wrong with the batch that’s in the punch bowl. I was drinking some just now. Let’s end the party now, without spreading panic. If we let everyone know they might have been poisoned, that’s going to put a swift end to our hopes of opening a bed-and-breakfast here anytime within this decade.”

“More importantly,” I said, “I think there’s zero chance that anyone was spiking more than my glass alone with poison. Let’s face it—for whatever reason, I always seem to be a prime target for murder attempts.” I mentally ran through a list of suspects who could have killed Angie and perhaps believed that I’d unknowingly seen something from my rooftop perch that evening—Mikara, Ben, Wendell, Chiffon, or Henry.

Audrey glanced at the clock on the stove, and I followed suit. It was eight twenty-two. Originally we weren’t going to wind things down till ten. “I’m going to have the waitstaff put away all the unserved munchies and beverages,” she said, “starting with the eggnog. Then I’ll get everyone to leave the house. Nicely, of course.”

“How are you going to manage that feat?” Steve asked.

“Easy.” She grabbed the phone and started dialing. “I’ll announce that my TV show is about to arrive to film a
segment on snow sculptures. And I’ll get a crew out here immediately by chipping in a hundred-dollar bonus for each of them. Then we’ll have the partyers wave at the cameras from behind their creations. And once everyone’s outside and the filming’s complete, we’ll thank all our guests for coming.”

Over the phone, Audrey told her producer that this was “a personal emergency,” and she needed a cameraman and van within fifteen minutes. She explained that “someone may or may not have slipped poison into a friend’s drink,” so she needed to get the police out here—without causing our guests to panic.

Once she hung up, Steve said, “That’s an ingenious plan, Audrey.”

“Thanks.” She patted his arm. “Having a camera crew at the ready is one of the fringe benefits of my job. I just wish I’d had my own show when my sons were teenagers. You can get all sorts of speedy results by promising to produce a television camera.”

“Let’s go do our civic duty,” Steve said to me, “and make sure Mackey doesn’t manage to ruin everything and get himself on TV.”

While Audrey made her announcement, Steve and I
grabbed our coats, slipped out the back door, and drove to the sheriff’s station at the jail. The tiny boxlike structure had been built according to recent stringent town ordinances, which required wooden siding painted from a range of light hues and using two complementary colors for the trim. The effect was more like an ice-cream shop
than town jail, inside and out. A long counter delineated the front room. Behind the counter, Sheriff Mackey and the sad-sack deputy who seemed to serve as his driver sat behind fake-wood Formica desks, separated by a partition that was arranged so that Mackey had twice the area as the deputy did.