Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 03 - Haunted (4 page)

“I think this cream puff is delicious,” Wyatt said. When it came to eating Wyatt had a one-track mind. He picked up another cream puff. It disappeared in two bites. “Can you teach Veronica to make these things, and those cherry tarts you make too?”

Veronica was the only daughter of the late Mr. Prescott and was currently dating Wyatt, with whom she’d reconnected during the ensuing investigation of Horatio Prescott’s death nearly a year ago. They’d been classmates in high school, but never dated back then.

After her father’s death she’d moved to Rockdale from Salt Lake City, where she’d recently lost the graphic design job she’d held at a local advertising firm. The firm decided to downsize when business slowed down, and they laid off a number of employees. She had the least seniority and was the first to go. Wyatt rehashed the story now to remind Stone and me what had brought Veronica back to Rockdale.

“That was a bad break for her, but it turned out to be fortunate for you, didn’t it? You were meant for each other. I’m so glad things have worked out so well for the two of you. How is Veronica, by the way?” I asked.

“She’s doing fine. She just landed a new job at a casino in St. Joseph. It isn’t really what she was hoping for, but it will do for now. She has her inheritance to live on for the time being, but she’d really like to find another job involving graphic design. After all, she went to the University of Kansas to earn a degree in that field. She submits an application whenever she hears about an opening in the graphic design field. She’d love to work for a large advertising firm.”

“I remember she inherited her father’s old place and moved into it. Is she planning to sell it?” I asked.

The magnificent house was an Italianate mansion in the historic region of Rockdale, not far from the Alexandria Inn. Her father, Horatio Prescott, was about to be inducted as the president of the local historical society when he was murdered in our nicest suite. It was a big deal here in Rockdale, a small town that took a lot of pride in its history and quaintness. It was Rockdale’s uniqueness that brought a lot of visitors in to town to leave their money in restaurants, gift shops, gas stations, and so on. Antique stores littered Main Street, and these were also popular with tourists. One small company in town offered a tour of homes in the historic region, so passenger vans often stopped in front of the inn while a tour guide narrated, explaining the design and history of the Alexandria Inn.

“I think she’s planning to list the home with Sunflower Realty,” Wyatt said. “It’s too much for her to take care of, and she really has no interest in antiques or historic homes. She’d like something smaller, easier to maintain, like a condo or townhouse. Unfortunately, as you know, the housing market in Rockdale is not at its best right now. There are far more houses on the market than there are buyers wanting to buy them.”

“Not only that,” Stone interjected. “Credit is easily accessible at banks across the country, so many people are building brand new homes, when they once would have bought an older home in an established neighborhood and fixed it up. Buyers are getting mortgages with little or no down payments. Contractors are building new spec homes, and buyers are getting into bidding wars over them. Subdivisions are popping up everywhere, except in smaller towns like ours. Walnut Ridge Estates is really the only new subdivision in Rockdale. But in places like Johnson County, every plot of vacant land is being sold for a mint and developed into a new subdivision. Eventually the housing bubble will probably burst and people will find themselves upside down in their new homes, owing more for them than they appraise for.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Eventually her historic home will sell, and maybe, in the meantime, Veronica could make a little extra money by taking in boarders, either short-term, or long-term. There’s a shortage of rentals in this town, you know, and we do draw a lot of tourists. We haven’t done too badly here at the inn so far.”

“Good idea, Lexie. I’ll suggest it to her when I stop by her place tonight. Are you sure you wouldn’t mind a little competition?” Wyatt asked, winking at me over the top of his pastry. He knew the inn was more of a labor of love for us than a quest for money.

“Of course not. There’s always room for one more, and her Italianate is ideal for a bed and breakfast,” I said. “We’ll help her in any way we can. As you know, we have a tendency to fill up in the summer months, and we’d be glad to send customers her way. We’d recommend her bed and breakfast as a substitute.”

“That would be so nice of you guys. She might just jump all over an idea like this. She could certainly use the extra money. A place like hers is expensive to maintain,” Wyatt said.

“You can say that again,” Stone said.

The subject of us doing a little investigating of our own had been dropped, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Of that, I was certain.

* * *

The phone was ringing in the kitchen later that afternoon as I walked in to get a refill on my coffee. I could tell by the caller ID it was my daughter.

“Hello, Wendy.”

“Hi, Mom. How are things going over there?” she asked. “Did the plastic hanging skeleton come to life, or a white-sheeted ghost make off with the silver since I left? The Alexandria Inn is a hotbed of crime, you know.”

“No, nothing new has happened here,” I told her. She was getting way too much enjoyment out of this terrible situation. “But Wyatt called and said they’d had to take Walter’s mother, Melba Sneed, to the hospital again because she became so distraught after hearing the news. Wyatt said she was nearly out of her mind and only half lucid when they first showed up on her doorstep, as if she already knew that something bad had happened. He thinks she might have forgotten to take her meds today, or possibly all week. She forgets to take them regularly, he said.”

“I’ve heard through the grapevine she’s a bit off-kilter, even on the best of days,” Wendy said.

“Yes, but I still find it disturbing she’d had some kind of premonition about the devastating news she was about to hear before she was told about her son’s death. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd to you, Wendy? Maybe I’ll go up and visit with her tomorrow.”

“Oh, boy—”

“I just—”

“Mom—”

“But I—”

“Please tell me you aren’t going to get involved in this investigation,” Wendy pleaded. “Do you remember what happened, or almost happened, the last time you did that? Granted, everything worked out okay in the end, but the outcome could have been much different. You are lucky to be alive.”

“Oh, Wendy, I have no intention of getting involved to that extent,” I said. “I only want to ask a few questions here and there. You know, just to protect the integrity of the inn. Even Stone said he was worried about how the news of Walter’s death could affect the business. I feel it’s the least I can do.”

“Oh, boy—” she said again. “A shiver just ran all the way up my spine. I almost hate to tell you what we found out in the autopsy.”

“Oh, tell me,” I said, much like a cat in heat in my intensity. “Come on, Wendy, tell me. Please.”

“Well, it was chloroform, as we suspected, which was used, presumably to sedate Walter. We found it in the tox screen we ran. The unusual thing is that Walter had a blood sugar reading of nine, which is way, way below normal. The official cause of death was listed as hypoglycemic coma.”

“What’s the normal range for blood sugar?”

“Generally between eighty and one hundred and twenty, and Walter has no history of diabetes or hypoglycemia. There was a small red puncture mark, a sign of a recent injection, on his lower right anterior abdominal wall. I was the one who discovered it,” Wendy stated proudly.

“What does that mean, in layman’s terms?” I asked. Wendy could be wordy when it came to descriptions of autopsies. I wanted her to cut to the chase.

“Walter died from a hypoglycemia coma due to insulin shock. Apparently, someone injected him with insulin after they sedated him with the chloroform. He may have known the intruder, and therefore didn’t make any noise when he saw him or her come into the parlor. The perpetrator no doubt knew we were in the house and wanted to commit a silent murder so as, not to alert us. This would allow him time to sneak out of the house and make a clean getaway, which is exactly what happened. Granted the inn is immense, but we still would have heard Walter shout or scream. He was probably unconscious before he even realized what was happening. A low blood sugar reaction can cause great confusion along with lightheadedness.”

“Yeah, and he was alone in the parlor most of the day,” I said. “We only popped in there occasionally with a group of kids.”

“Yes, and think back, Mom. No one but Walter had been in the parlor for over an hour. We had shut the place down for lunch, and you and I had a sandwich in the kitchen and spent the rest of the time rearranging the props in the library and on the back porch.”

“I guess someone could have sneaked in the front door and gone into the parlor while we were busy in the back of the house,” I said. “It is a huge house. Still, we should have heard any noises coming from the parlor from where the kitchen is located at the back of the house.”

Wendy nodded. “But like I said, if Walter knew the intruder and didn’t view him or her as a threat, he wouldn’t have any reason to shout out. And it wouldn’t have taken but a matter of seconds to sedate and inject Walter with the insulin. It was probably a very large dose that took only a matter of minutes to take effect.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right. Was there anything else interesting you discovered in the autopsy?”

“No, that’s about the size of it, although the cause of death is fairly substantial. Isn’t that enough to satisfy you for now?”

“Uh-huh. Okay then. Bye, honey,” I said, practically hanging up on her in my haste to go tell Stone the news. The subject of doing a little investigating of our own was about to be broached again. Walter’s death was officially a homicide.

* * *

Sitting at the kitchen table with Stone at dinnertime, I found I had very little appetite for the corned beef and cabbage I’d prepared. Normally, it was one of my favorite meals. Even my much beloved asparagus just got pushed around on my plate, as I thought back to what had happened earlier in the day. While fixing supper, I’d called the hospital to check on Melba’s condition and was told she was resting comfortably, under heavy sedation.

I needed to have a reason to leave the inn tomorrow. Stone had indicated he didn’t want to be personally involved in the investigation, and I knew he genuinely was busy maintaining the inn and the lawn. He’d also made it clear he wasn’t happy about my desire to do a little snooping and prying, so it would be best to keep my own involvement in the case to myself as much as possible, to avoid causing Stone undue stress and anxiety.

Stone had been very open to helping me investigate two murders in the past, but after my life had been threatened in a variety of ways the last time around, he was no longer as willing to get involved as he’d once been. And he didn’t want me involved in any way at all, but he knew he couldn’t force his will on me, so he tried pleading with me instead. That was only effective to a certain degree.

I caught my reflection in the highly polished serving bowl in the center of the table and realized it was time to have my short brown hair permed again. The span between perms seemed to be getting shorter and shorter. There were still quite a few blond highlights left in my hair, at least. Getting my hair permed would give me a viable excuse to be out and about.

As I looked back up, I caught Stone staring at me. He had noticed I was deep in thought. “Are you thinking about Walter, like I am?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, not wanting to admit I was thinking about making an appointment for a perm. I liked to let Stone believe I was very low-maintenance, even though the maintenance routine was getting more and more complex with each passing year.

Fortunately, Stone was pretty unobservant when it came to my appearance. I could have been wearing a do-rag and an eye patch for all he noticed. Thank God he loved me for all the right reasons and not just my physical appearance. At five-foot-two and 125 pounds, I wasn’t exactly model material. But Stone wasn’t David Beckham either, and I was glad he wasn’t. Excessively handsome men could be excessively vain too, and I loved Stone exactly the way he was: warm and caring, and sensitive to my needs.

“I can’t get Walter off my mind,” Stone admitted. “I feel so damned bad about him getting killed right beneath our very noses.”

“You were outside most of the morning. Did you see anything unusual?” I realized the detectives had already asked him these same questions, but I was hoping to jog a memory he might have forgotten.

“I don’t recall anyone pulling into the driveway at around the time of the murder, but then I was in the garden shed out back, tweaking the engine on my lawn mower,” Stone said between bites of the new potatoes he was eating. His appetite had not been affected by the untimely death of Walter Sneed. “I did find out, however, that as the mail carrier was dropping off our mail, he spotted someone dressed in dark clothing leaving the front yard on foot. He said the person cut through the hedges into the yard next door as if to get out of sight as quickly as possible.”

“How did you find out about that?”

“The mail carrier mentioned something about it to Willard next door when he went up to the house to deliver an Express Mail package. I’ve already phoned Wyatt to tell him about it.”