Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A minute later we were all standing in front of the door to the room Justin had occupied. It was second to the end on the opposite side of the house from our rooms.

I pointed to the bedroom at the very end of the hallway. “Who was staying in that room?”

“Morgan,” Petunia said.

I nodded. The other room that shared a wall with Justin’s was the shared bath. I’d already looked inside, but it was standard—toilet, vanity, and tub with shower with a small window on the back wall.

“You said when he didn’t come down by noon, one of the friends sounded the alarm, right?” I asked, recalling what Corndog had told me before.

Corndog nodded. “They were banging on the door and making such a racket I heard them in the kitchen. Petunia and I came up to see what was going on. The big one was knocking and trying to open the door, but it was locked and it’s solid. His wife and the smart-looking fellow were calling on their phones. We could hear a phone ringing in the room, but he never answered. ”

“So Daniel and Tyler broke down the door to get inside?”

“Didn’t see as we had a choice,” Corndog said. “By then, we was all pretty convinced something wasn’t right. It wasn’t like he could have gone off for doughnuts or something and even if he’d gone on walkabout, he wouldn’t have left his phone. Least that’s what his friends said.”

I nodded. “So walk me through it step by step.”

“He and the other one—the tall skinny one—managed to get the door open and they both practically fell inside. The lanky one froze as soon as he saw the guy in bed, but the rest of them rushed in and one of the girls screamed. I looked around the lanky one and wondered for a moment if we’d just torn up a perfectly good doorframe for no reason as it looked like he was still asleep, but there was the screaming, so I figured it was worse than that.”

“And he was face down on the bed?”

Corndog nodded. “Face down and still fully dressed—even his tennis shoes were still on. The big one shook him, then he lost all color and put his fingers on his neck. Then he turned around and says, ‘He’s dead.’”

Petunia’s eyes welled up with tears. “Brittany—I’m pretty sure she’s the one who screamed—starts shaking him and saying it’s not possible. That he can’t be dead, and starts yelling for someone to do CPR. Everyone just stood there in a bunch, not knowing what to do and looking like they were all going to pass out. Then Daniel pulled Brittany away from the bed and grabbed her in a bear hug and tells her the body is cold. She practically collapsed right there.”

Corndog ran one hand over his thinning hair. “It was a right mess.”

“I don’t suppose anyone checked the window, did they?”

“I did,” Petunia said. “Well, I wasn’t checking it, per se, but I was going to open it to get some air in the room. They looked like they could use some as there was the smell… But then Corndog motioned at me not to, and I realized it probably wasn’t a good idea.”

“I watch those detective shows,” Corndog said. “They always want you to leave everything alone, but I knew why Petunia was going for the window. Didn’t none of them look like they was going to be standing much longer, so I said as how we should head downstairs and call the sheriff. Wasn’t nothing that could be done for the poor fellow anyway.”

“But the window was latched?”

Petunia nodded.

“And you said the room key was on the floor next to the bed?”

“Yep. His arm was outstretched just above it, with his hand hanging over the side in between the bed and the nightstand. Looked like maybe he was going to put it on there but passed out and dropped it.”

“And his EpiPen?”

“Right there on the stand next to the lamp. His cell phone was in his pocket.”

“Was there anything else on the nightstand?”

They both shook their heads.

“Did you hear what any of them said when the sheriff interviewed them? Or I guess I should ask if he even bothered.”

“He took their statements, for what it was worth,” Petunia said. “I didn’t see him doing much in the way of making notes, but we were all there. I remember everything that was said. My memory’s always been tight as a drum.”

“That’s true,” Corndog agreed.

“Okay, then let’s start with the night before. What time did they come inside?”

“I’m not sure,” Corndog said. “We came in to start cleanup around eight. The smart one with the glasses gave us a hand carrying stuff. Cleanup took about thirty minutes, then we headed back to our suite for a shower and were probably in bed by nine. I could still hear them outside then, but after that we put in our earplugs.”

“Daniel said they all drank outside until the mosquitoes moved in, then they headed for the library a little after nine,” Petunia said. “They did some heavy drinking, and I know that for sure because I check the bottles of whiskey and count the beer bottles to get an idea of what’s been consumed. It’s the honor system for charges, but so far, people have been fair. We can’t exactly afford to have an open bar—not with those kind of drinkers especially.”

“And they all agreed that Justin was drunk?”

“Definitely. They said he was about to pass out, but I got the impression it still took a bit of effort to get him to call it quits. Brittany said Daniel and Tyler practically carried Justin up the stairs.”

“Did they put him in bed?”

“No. They said he could walk five feet to the bed, and Tyler said no way was he undressing a grown man who still didn’t know how to hold his liquor. That he could pass out on the floor in his clothes for all he cared.”

“That sounds like Tyler,” Ida Belle said. “Not that I blame him.”

“And they’re sure Justin locked his door?” I asked.

Petunia nodded. “Brittany said Daniel told him to lock the door as soon as he went inside, and they waited until they heard it click, then checked.”

“That sounds a little odd,” I said. “Surely they didn’t think something would happen to him here.”

“I thought the same thing when I heard it,” Petunia said, “and apparently it was strange enough for even Sheriff Useless to ask about it. But Daniel said he wanted the door locked because he figured it would help prevent Justin from leaving the room again. I took that to mean they thought he was so drunk that once he locked the door, he might not be able to figure out how to open it again until he sobered up.”

Corndog nodded. “They didn’t want him falling down the stairs or worse.”

“I guess that makes sense. Even if he managed the stairs without falling, they didn’t want him roaming around in his condition, especially since he could have wandered outside and right into a crowd of alligators waiting for a buffet. Did they say if he had the key on him when they went back upstairs?”

“No,” Petunia said. “None of them did, because that’s one of the things the sheriff asked right after he found out from us that all the keys are unique and only fit their one door. They all said they’d left their keys in the lock on the inside because they didn’t figure it was necessary to lock up. After all, it was only their group that was staying here at the time.”

I nodded. “Did anyone try to check on Justin again that night? Or early the next morning?”

“No,” Petunia said. “They all went to bed after making sure Justin was locked in, and the next morning everyone slept in. We keep watch so we know when to start a fresh pot of coffee and for me to get working on breakfast, but it was almost 10:00 a.m. before any of them came out. Daniel called Justin before breakfast, but he didn’t answer. They all just figured he was sleeping it off.”

“But when he still hadn’t emerged two hours later and wasn’t answering, they got worried,” I said. “Morgan shared a wall with Justin. Did he hear anything?”

“No,” Petunia said. “Bryce asked that much at least, but Morgan said he went right to sleep and didn’t hear so much as a peep from the other room the rest of the night. ”

I knew from Ida Belle and Gertie overhearing Daniel and Brittany’s argument that the walls were fairly thin, so if there had been a struggle of any kind, or raised voices, Morgan probably would have heard something. That was assuming, of course, that he wasn’t lying, but at the moment, I couldn’t think of a reason why he would.

“Did you see the body? The face, I mean?” I asked.

“No,” Corndog said. “He was face down and once I cleared everyone out of the room, we called the sheriff. No one went back in there until the sheriff and Simpson, the medical examiner, showed up to do their thing. I didn’t go in with them, though. To be honest, I didn’t want to see the poor guy. I didn’t even think about him having an allergic reaction until Simpson came out and asked if he was allergic to anything.”

I nodded and blew out a breath. “Okay. I’d like to take a look inside, if that’s okay.”

“Go right ahead,” Petunia said.

I pulled on latex gloves, figuring there was no sense leaving my prints in case Bryce decided to actually do his job. Then after I’d directed the others to remain in the hallway until I’d made a pass, Corndog pushed open the door and I stepped inside.

The room looked different in daylight—smaller but pleasant. It didn’t look like a place a man had died, if you could ignore the smell. Death had a certain odor, and it was one I was familiar with. I went straight to the bed and scanned the sheets and pillow where Justin’s face would have been, wondering why Bryce didn’t take them with him, but then I remembered his laziness and answered my own question.

“This side, right?” I asked, pointing to the side next to the nightstand.

They nodded and I pulled the quilt back to get a better look at the pillows, then reached for the pillow on the far side of the bed. There was a stain of some sort in the center of it, and I wanted to get a closer look. As I pulled it closer to inspect it, I realized it was lipstick.

“Was this stain here before?” I asked.

“No,” Petunia said. “If I can’t get a stain out of linens, I tear them apart for cleaning rags.”

“It looks like lipstick,” Ida Belle said.

I nodded and pulled one finger across the stain. It spread. Not a lot, but enough to know it was reasonably fresh. I flipped the covers back a bit more but didn’t see anything else and didn’t want to go any lower as I knew what was there already and didn’t need to see it.

I set the pillow down and took a quick picture of the lipstick stain, then put it back where I’d found it. After that, I walked the rest of the room, inch by inch, looking in the wardrobe and desk drawers and under the bed. But it was under the nightstand that I saw something twinkle. I pulled out my phone and shone the light under there and realized it was an earring.

I retrieved it and rose, showing the earring to Corndog and Petunia.

“Do you remember anyone wearing these earrings?” I asked.

“Not me,” Corndog said. “But then, it’s not exactly something I pay much attention to.”

Petunia shook her head. “I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention either. I was too busy seeing to food and the like. I do remember that all the ladies had their hair down for dinner though, so I guess it wouldn’t have been easily spotted.”

“Could it have been there before they arrived?” I asked.

“No,” Petunia said. “I moved the nightstand and rolled the rug up to clean the top of the baseboards and polish the floors before they came. I usually do it once a month or so. ”

I studied the design, a fleur-de-lis with a sapphire in the center. “Does this look custom?”

Ida Belle shrugged, as expected. Gertie leaned in and gave it a hard look but finally shook her head.

“I can’t say,” she said. “It could be cheap silver coating, or it could be platinum gold. And the stone might be a real sapphire or might be a fake. If it’s cheap, then probably something mass produced that we might be able to find in a gift shop in NOLA. If it’s real, then yeah, could be custom.”

“You think that’s what the person who went out the window was looking for?” Ida Belle asked.

“It’s possible,” I asked, then blew out a breath. “But why? Why did it matter? Why take the risk?”

“The logical answer is because she didn’t want anyone to know she was in here with Justin,” Gertie said. “In bed with Justin.”

“Okay,” I said. “But why not just wait until it was time to leave and then casually mention to Petunia that she’d lost the earring and if it was found, please give her a call?”

“It definitely would have been the smart thing to do,” Ida Belle said. “But if it was Brittany, I can see why she wouldn’t go that route.”

Petunia sucked in a breath. “You think she could have been cheating on her husband?”

I stared out the window, frowning. Something was so off about all of this.

“At this point, I have no idea,” I said. “All I know is someone was desperate enough to retrieve this earring that they entered a crime scene and fled through a second-story window in the middle of a thunderstorm. I’ll be happy to admit that I don’t think like normal girls, but it’s still hard for me to fathom someone feeling a level of shame that they’d take those risks. ”

“Brittany owns a gymnastics studio,” Ida Belle reminded her. “It wouldn’t be as big a risk for her as it would for others.”

“If it wasn’t for the storm, I would agree with you,” I said. “But taking the risk during a storm that severe reeks of desperation, not stealth.”

Corndog frowned. “You don’t think someone killed that boy, do you?”

I put my hands in the air. “If we assume that Justin didn’t accidentally eat the wrong thing, which doesn’t seem likely given he’d made it this long as a known drunk and without making that kind of mistake, then yes, the whole situation stinks. The question is whether his death was accidental or intentional.”

“Some of them certainly aren’t torn up over up,” Ida Belle said.

I nodded. “But let’s just say that one of them wanted to kill Justin and figured giving him peanuts might be a way to do it and make it look accidental. If they did so in the company of the others, they not only risked being stopped or caught, but if Justin had a reaction within minutes of digestion, someone could have easily administered his EpiPen.”

“They couldn’t have put peanut oil in his drink because it would have floated on top and someone would have noticed,” Gertie said. “Plus, the taste would have been off, even for a drunk man, and it would have been oily on his lips. And if someone broke out candy with peanuts and offered him a bite, everyone would notice.”

Ida Belle nodded. “So the only way they could decrease their risk of exposure and increase the probability of Justin dying was to dose him after he was falling-down drunk and alone in his room.”

“Exactly,” I said. “But how did they do it? Justin was locked inside the room, the key on the floor next to him, and the window latched.”

“Could someone have gone to Justin’s room after they all went to bed and gotten him to let them in?” Corndog asked.

“I suppose, but if Justin was as drunk as they’re saying, then would he have even heard someone knocking? And they couldn’t have knocked loudly, or they would have risked waking up the others. Maybe he could have let someone in, but it doesn’t seem likely for a man who was already about to pass out and had to be carried up the stairs. And even if he had let someone in, how did they get out and manage to leave the window latched and door locked?”

Ida Belle and Gertie both frowned and I knew they were as unhappy as I was that the situation I posited was possible but there was no proof to get Corndog off the hook. I could tell that Corndog and Petunia were thinking the same thing.

“I know this is an old house but there’s not enough space between these room walls for a secret passage to exist, right?” I asked.

Petunia shook her head. “I always wished we had them, especially when we were kids. It was something out of stories, of course, but apparently just being hidden on this island was enough for the pirates. They didn’t need to escape, and I guess they didn’t care if they saw servants, assuming they had them.”

I shook my head. I hated this. It was all wrong, and everything about this room and the reunion friends made me believe it was a suspicious death, but if the ME had called it otherwise, I wasn’t sure what I could do. If someone who actually cared about solving crimes were in charge, things might be different. I might be able to persuade him to take another look, but that didn’t sound possible with Bryce.

“I wish I could have seen that body,” I said. “Because I’m sorry, but I don’t see any way to help clear you. It’s absolutely possible that Justin ate something he shouldn’t have later on that night. And it’s also possible that one of the others slipped into his room earlier that day and left a treat laced with peanut oil on his nightstand, hoping he’d eat it before he went to sleep and be too drunk to get his EpiPen. But I can’t prove it. Just like I can’t prove you didn’t accidentally use peanut oil because the oil was disposed of and you finished off the fish.”

Petunia frowned. “We didn’t eat the fish.”

I stared. “The others said you and Corndog must have eaten the fish because the dish you’d wrapped it in was clean and in the drying rack the next morning.”

“I promise you, it wasn’t us,” Corndog said. “When we cook out, we eat along with the guests, and we were both stuffed to the gills when we went to bed. Plus, I’ll admit to having a shot or two of whiskey with those boys, which probably helped me along. Petunia has gotten a solid eight hours every night since I’ve known her. Heck, she slept through a couple hours of labor with our daughter just because it wasn’t her rising time yet.”

“That’s a serious talent,” Ida Belle said.

“He’s right,” Petunia said. “We didn’t get up that night, or any night while they were here. And I’m afraid with our earplugs, we don’t hear people moving around—which was the point of the dang things, but it seems we’d have been better off to have disrupted sleep in this case.”

“Do guests normally wander around your kitchen and help themselves to food?” I asked. “I figured not since you keep drinks and snacks in the library, but missing food would indicate otherwise.”

“I can’t say it’s normal,” Petunia said, “but some do. I think sometimes they get the munchies after all the drinking or maybe they didn’t eat well at supper or didn’t necessarily like what I served. I don’t mind, of course. As long as they’re not in here cooking and messing things up, then eating some leftovers or even heating up a bowl of canned soup and helping themselves to a package of crackers has never been a problem. A couple have even cooked omelets. I could tell because some eggs were gone, and the skillet was in the drying rack.”

“Can you recall anything that was missing after that night—besides the fish?”

“No. And definitely nothing with peanuts. I keep peanuts and pecans on hand for baking, but they’re in the freezer and the bags haven’t been opened. I checked right after…”

“What about peanut butter?”

“I always have a jar, but it was new and still sealed. We’d just had a small family reunion the week before with little kids. They tore through the peanut butter.”

So another dead end.

I stared around the room, silently willing something—anything—to come to me, but I had nothing but a bunch of suspicions and no proof.

Then I heard the door downstairs open and close, and a voice called out.

“Corndog? I need a word.”

Corndog and Petunia both froze.

“That’s Bryce,” Petunia whispered.