Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Amateur Sleuth

Killer Cocktail (6 page)

BOOK: Killer Cocktail

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“Of course.”

We were too far away to eavesdrop on the detectives. Straining to hear, all I could pick up was the occasional consonant cluster from the ME floating on the night air. I noticed Myerson kept his eyes either on his notebook or on the ground, while Cook kept glancing from the ME’s face to Lisbet’s body.

I found myself, against my will, thinking of Jake’s wordless cinema as I tried to discern what information was being communicated. The gestures were pretty vague. Until the medical examiner brought her hand to her forehead in a sharp movement that I thought for a moment was a mock salute. But then she did it again and I realized she was demonstrating a blow to the head. The phrase “blunt force trauma” leapt to mind, despite my efforts to block it with commercial jingles and other meaningless padding available in my brain.

“Aw, crap,” Cassady said, realizing the same thing.

A compacted sob pushed out of Tricia. “Davey said someone killed her. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“The detectives already do.”

Detective Myerson tapped the handrail of the pool ladder. The medical examiner shook her head, then motioned over a technician and pointed to the handrail. Detective
Cook gestured to two uniformed officers and made a large, circular motion that encompassed the whole lawn. They had to be looking for a murder weapon now.

Tricia started shivering so hard I could feel the vibration through Cassady, who sat between us. Cassady rubbed Tricia’s arms and tossed her head at the house. “We should go in.”

Being an unexpected adjunct to a family tragedy is a delicate situation at best. Something about the grandeur of the setting and the Vincents’ impeccable manners made me want to rise to the occasion and come up with the perfect gracious thing to do or say that would get everyone to relax. But Emily Post doesn’t cover the aftermath of murder in her helpful little guidebook and even my experience with Teddy’s death didn’t yield anything helpful to offer as we entered a drawing room filled with silent despair.

This was a room I hadn’t seen yet, with wood and brass that shone from generations of careful polishing, walls painted such a deep green you expected dew to form on the baseboard, and dense Persian carpets that enforced quiet and reserve. I took my cue from the carpet and kept my mouth shut, except when taking sips of the Carlos I brandy that Nelson pressed upon everyone. There were plenty of champagne bottles still around, but it seemed inappropriate to drink something celebratory now.

Aunt Cynthia and Mr. Vincent were on separate phones, Aunt Cynthia browbeating a charter pilot she knew in Los Angeles and Mr. Vincent making arrangements with Lisbet’s parents. He looked far more ashen than he’d looked outside, even in view of Lisbet. Telling her parents must have been awful. I couldn’t even imagine the horror of being on the other end of the phone.

Richard and Rebecca flanked David and Mrs. Vincent on the main couch. Tricia and Cassady sat, arms interlocked, on
a loveseat. I got up and wandered, not because I didn’t have anyone to huddle with, but because I couldn’t stop thinking about the detectives out by the pool. I had actually learned my lesson, having been down this path once before, about how dangerous it could be to get involved in a murder investigation. Still, I couldn’t help but speculate about what the detectives were thinking, who they were suspecting, what was going to happen next.

Nelson offered a brandy to Richard. It seemed to trigger a thought in Richard. “We will get Grandmother’s emeralds back, won’t we?”

“Richard,” his mother said with frigid warning.

Nelson held a brandy out to Rebecca and she bolted unsteadily to her feet. “I don’t want anything to drink.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nelson replied quietly and moved on.

“I don’t want anything to drink ever again,” Rebecca continued. “Look where drinking gets you.”

Richard stood and put a consoling and/or restraining arm around her shoulders. “Take it easy,” he told her, indicating his father and aunt on the phone.

“How can I, when Lisbet’s dead?”

“Thanks, that helps,” David moaned.

“Stop it. Both of you,” Mrs. Vincent commanded in crisp, frosted tones.

Richard stood next to Rebecca. “We’re all overwrought and looking for a convenient target for our anger and grief. It’s not going to happen. It wouldn’t be fair to Lisbet to let it happen. We have to accept this pain and still manage to be human to each other. That’s a tall order, but if we all work in the same direction, it’s feasible. And I don’t know how else any of us are going to get through this.”

The trouble with people who have a way with words is that their moments of true eloquence are hard to distinguish
from their moments of crafted doublespeak and so most of what they say is suspect. But I’ll give Richard credit: I knew he’d been working campaigns with his dad since high school and I still believed he meant every word he said.

Understandably, David was not so easily swayed. “Rally the troops somewhere else, you pompous bastard.”

Mr. Vincent slammed the phone down. For a moment, it seemed he was upset with whomever had been on the other end of his conversation, but it quickly became apparent that he’d heard his sons beginning theirs. “Shut up.”

“Hear that, Rebecca?” David said with a sneer.

Rebecca’s face, already flushed with emotion, went florid with anger. “I’m sharing an epiphany. I’m evolving.”

“No,” David pressed, “you’re assuming someone cares what you think.”

Richard’s civility began to shred. “No one’s going to blame you for acting like a prick, David, but don’t feel obligated.”

David opened his mouth to respond, but Mrs. Vincent put her hand on his knee. It was a light touch, barely flattening the crease in his trousers, but the effect on David was akin to a stun gun. “Grow up or get out,” she said quietly.

Get a family together, especially in times of stress, and the seams are going to show. Tricia was turning a shade of white I haven’t even seen in stationery collections. Richard and David clammed up immediately. Even Rebecca dropped back down onto the sofa, eyes welling with tears. Mr. and Mrs. Vincent looked at the floor.

Only Aunt Cynthia continued on, instructing the party on the other end of the phone to do exactly as she demanded. She seemed certain she would get her way, no doubt based on years of experience. Her composure was remarkable. I wasn’t sure if I was envious or repulsed.

I stole a look at Cassady, who was silent in the face of so much repressed emotion. She frowned at me, but I didn’t know what to do either, except stay quiet. I drifted over to the French doors and leaned as close to the glass as I dared, not wanting it to be my lipstick Nelson had to clean off the window in the morning. But just as I got close enough for the reflection from the room to give way to the actual picture outside, something thwacked against the glass, right about even with my nose. I gasped and jerked back, splashing a goodly portion of brandy on my wrist.

As I debated in a split second whether to lick the brandy off, the door swung open and Detective Cook stepped in. She gave me a tight smirk I associate with cheerleaders who have just bedded the guy you’ve been pining after for an entire semester. “Excuse me.”

Since pointing out that she’d known exactly what she was doing and was enjoying it a little too much wasn’t going to accomplish anything, I smiled back. “No problem.”

We both paused a moment to silently call each other “bitch,” then moved on. I retreated in search of a napkin and a better vantage point while Detective Cook strode into the middle of the room to introduce herself to everyone. Detective Myerson entered almost unnoticed behind her and quietly closed the door.

Detective Cook recited her spiel about being sorry for our loss and didn’t bother to make it sound spontaneous, much less sincere, then asked Aunt Cynthia if there was a room in which she and her partner could speak to people individually.

“There are thirty-two rooms in this house but there’s no reason we can’t all speak freely right here,” Aunt Cynthia said.

Detective Cook shook her head. “Gracious thought, but bad procedure.”

“We’ve already given statements,” Mrs. Vincent said.

“Which have given rise to a couple of questions that I can either sort out here or we can discuss at greater length at … my house.” Detective Cook was enjoying the escalation of tension in the room. Piece of work.

“It was an accident,” Mrs. Vincent tried again. “She slipped and fell.”

“And you believe that because … ?”

Mrs. Vincent was not accustomed to people telling her when she was wrong, but she still recognized it when it happened. And didn’t like it one bit. She looked to Mr. Vincent for his reaction, but he was staring at some point past the detectives, maybe out the windows and to the pool, and didn’t notice.

The Vincents had been through enough, so I decided to be a good guest and redirect the heat for a moment. “Was Lisbet dead before she went into the water?”

It was a painful thing for most of the people in the room to hear, but Detective Cook was really ticking me off with her high-handed attitude and I wanted to cut to the chase. There didn’t seem to be much reason for jerking anyone around at this point.

Detective Cook turned slowly to look at me, giving me ample time to register her displeasure with my question and, given the narrowing of her eyes, my very existence. “Who are you again?”

“Molly’s a journalist. Molly Forrester. She investigated a murder in the city,” Richard said, offering my resume to be helpful and being anything but.

Detective Cook’s eyes narrowed so tightly that they might as well have closed. She was starting to like me just as much as I was liking her. I could tell.

“The Teddy Reynolds murder.
Manhattan magazine
,” Detective Myerson said. I’d almost forgotten he was in the room.

“Yes,” I said, as neutrally as possible.

“How nice for you,” Detective Cook said, still not trying to sound sincere. She pointed at David. “I’d like to talk to you first.”

“Excuse me. You didn’t answer my question,” I persisted. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the information once I had it, but I wasn’t going to ignore the fact that she was trying to ignore me.

“Won’t know that until the autopsy,” she said, keeping her eyes on David. She gestured for him to stand up, which he seemed reluctant or unable to do.

Detective Myerson looked right at me. “Good article.”

“Thank you.” I made a point of smiling at him and sounding sincere. Not so much to impress him as to get under Detective Cook’s skin. I couldn’t tell if it worked on Detective Cook, but Detective Myerson returned the smile. I pressed my luck. “So this is a murder investigation.”

Detective Cook pivoted back, to control both me and her partner. “The medical examiner believes Ms. McCandless was struck forcibly by an object and then fell into the pool.”

“Have you recovered the weapon?”

“I’m sorry, I thought they said you were a journalist. You got your law degree from … ?”

Cassady raised her hand. “No, I’m the lawyer.”

“Do lawyers need to be called?” Mr. Vincent asked. His hand hovered near the telephone, like a Western gunfighter ready to draw.

Detective Cook took a deep breath. She wasn’t having quite as much fun now. “Not at all. I simply want to make sure I fully understand the situation before anyone’s memory
gets fuzzy or the situation gets too public or Aspen gets too crowded, that sort of thing.”

Rebecca rose before anyone could stop her. In shockingly level tones, she said, “What you don’t appreciate is who this family is and what we’ve just been through.”

Aunt Cynthia moved behind Rebecca quickly and put a hand on her shoulder. “She’s quite right. Your smirking inferences are an insult to all.”

Detective Cook’s hands slid up to her hips and rested there, pushing her jacket open. I don’t know if the gesture was meant to draw attention to her waning patience or to the gun on her hip, but it did both.

“I’d like to take just a few moments to review the time line of events David Vincent has already given,” Detective Myerson said, indicating David with a gentle nod. “Our thorough understanding of that timeline now will help avoid unpleasant confusions later.”

Mr. Vincent knows when he’s being spun. But I could see in his eyes an acknowledgment of both the situation and the quality of Detective Myerson’s spinning. He nodded and said, “David,” in a quiet but forceful voice.

David rose. Aunt Cynthia made a gesture Nelson seemed to understand and he led the way out, as though simply escorting David and the two detectives to the bathroom.

I checked to see how Tricia was handling all this and saw that same odd look on her face. Part sorrow and part rage. She caught me looking at her and turned away, a sure sign something huge was happening behind her poised facade.

Mr. Vincent picked up the phone. Mrs. Vincent pulled on her pearls. “She said no lawyers needed to be called.”

“Which is precisely why I’m calling.”

BOOK: Killer Cocktail

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