Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) (14 page)

“Got it.” Portia waved the tripod. She clicked the camera into it and plugged in a black box with a built-in bulb. “Joanna, will you take this for me? Hold it up. Over there.”

Pulse still racing, Joanna obediently held the flash high and pointed it toward the dumbwaiter.
 

“Okay.” She paused and squinted at the camera. “Huh. I seem to have taken a photo by mistake. Of the floor.” She examined Joanna with bald curiosity.
 

Joanna held a blank expression. “Is this position right for the flash?”

“Yeah, sure,” Portia said and began to photograph.

“You two stick together, and I’m going to round up everyone else and tell them to meet us in the great room,” Daniel said.

Portia photographed several angles of Chef Jules’s body as well as the bent fork and lever.

“I think we have it covered.” Portia detached her camera from the tripod and shook her head. “Grisly. Clarke was right. I’ve seen my fair share of bodies, but there’s something especially gruesome when it’s someone you know.”

They both looked at the chef. Even in the short time since Joanna had discovered him, his body had begun to relax in the kitchen’s relative warmth. Jules. Joanna knew the shock she felt now, the shock that allowed her to take charge, would wear off in the coming hours, and the full impact of the chef’s death would hit home.
 

“We should take a few photos upstairs, too,” Joanna said. “That’s where the dumbwaiter’s platform was. My guess is that he’d been smoking outside. First we’ll need to remove him, though. Are you game for helping me carry him back to his room?”
 

“Why don’t we just pop him out into the snow? Then he’ll stay perfectly preserved.”

Joanna shook her head. “I see what you mean, but it just isn’t right. It’s not—it’s not respectful.” He deserved the same respect as Wilson. “His room is cold and out of the way.”

“Fine.” Portia set aside her camera. “I’ll take the shoulders if you get the feet.” She eased the chef’s body from the dumbwaiter, his head and shoulders pulled against her chest. His legs unfolded and she pulled, and Joanna caught them by the knee as they readied to tumble to the floor. Less than a day ago she’d lifted another body this way—Wilson’s.

“Got him? Good thing he’s a skinny guy.”

The two women, Chef Jules’s body swaying between them, shuffled toward his room in the dark. Portia bumped the door open with her hip. They sidled up to the bed and hoisted him.

“God, I need a cigarette, and I haven’t smoked in a year.” Portia straightened and stretched her back. It was strange to hear these words from someone so uncannily like Penny.

“I’ve never smoked, and I need one, too,” Joanna said. She lit the candlestick on the chef’s nightstand. Bed, desk, chair, stack of French graphic novels. The room looked much the same as it had that morning—now, actually, the morning before.

“What’s going on?” Reverend Tony had come from his bedroom across the hall. He stopped suddenly at the sight of Chef Jules laid out in bed. “Holy Mother of Christ.”

Clarke’s earlier words about Tony’s background report passed through Joanna’s mind. She backed him into the hall. “Daniel’s gathering everyone in the great room for an explanation. You’d best get up there.” She closed the door firmly behind them.
 

Barefoot, the Reverend went reluctantly upstairs while Portia and Joanna fetched the camera in the kitchen. When they arrived in the butler’s pantry, he was waiting for them.
 

“Go sit down,” Joanna said, but he didn’t move.

Portia called up the dumbwaiter. It growled its way from the kitchen. It had taken Joanna a moment downstairs to figure out how the dumbwaiter worked, but Portia hadn’t hesitated.

“Maybe I can help.” Reverend Tony’s eyes darted through the butler’s pantry, and he moved forward.

Joanna pushed him back. He sure was persistent. “Wait out there. Go. Penny should be out in a minute.” Bubbles’s collar jangled from the next room. Bette must be up.

By the time Tony had left, Portia had her camera set up. “I suppose we should photograph the deck outside, too. That means we need to get in the dumbwaiter.” The temperature inside the lodge had already dropped several degrees, and the wind whistled outdoors. Joanna shivered. “I know,” Portia said. “But we’ve got to do it.”

“We can keep both sides open. We’ll lose a lot of heat, but the sooner we do this the better. The snow will cover any evidence,” Joanna said. The dumbwaiter was roomy, but was it roomy enough? “You crawl in first, with the camera, and I’ll slide next to you, if I can, with the flash.”

Holding her camera ahead of her, Portia crawled into the dumbwaiter and lay on her stomach. She pulled herself forward so her head and arms dangled outside, leaving only her knees protruding from the butler pantry’s side of the mechanism. Joanna slid into the dumbwaiter next to her. Its cold metal floor chilled her belly. Wind-thrust snow burnt her face.

She held the flash the best she could as Portia photographed the snow drift up to the dining room windows. Candlelight appeared in the breakfast room’s windows, and Joanna saw Bette glance up at them through the glass, then move back toward the great room. A few cigarette butts partially dusted over with snow littered the edge of the house protected by the roof’s overhang.

“That’s it. I’m freezing. Let’s get inside.” Portia wriggled backward and slid to the floor. “Want some help?” She pulled Joanna by the hips until her feet reached the ground. They sealed up the dumbwaiter’s doors and brushed snow from their hair.

Portia breathed on her fingers to warm them, then leaned against the doorway to the dining room and flipped through the photos. She shook her head.

“The photos look okay, don’t you think?” She grimaced. “My battery’s getting low, and the other pack is dead.”
 

It occurred to Joanna that if Portia wanted to, she could easily make sure the photos disappeared completely. Who could she trust here?

***

In the great room, Daniel had built a fire. The flames cast orange light against his bearded face and tousled hair. Joanna hurried to the hearth to warm her hands.

“Maybe you shouldn’t build that up too much, Dan,” Clarke said. “We won’t be out here long.”

Without looking at him, Daniel put another log in the fireplace.
 

Sylvia sat on the lips couch with her arm around Marianne. She’d draped a blanket over them. “What’s going on, anyway? Why’d you wake us?”

“In a minute, Sylvia. Let’s wait for the others.”
 

Portia joined Penny on the other couch with Reverend Tony. Tony placed a hand reassuringly over Penny’s. Bette, with Bubbles slung over her shoulder, occupied the clam chair.

Joanna rested on the hearth, and Clarke lowered himself next to her.

“We’re all here—” Daniel began.
 

Bette’s lips moved silently, and she seemed to be ticking something off with her fingers. “No, we’re not. I count nine. Someone’s missing.” She twisted her head to take in the whole room. “It’s that vintage dress girl. No—there you are. It’s the chef. Where’s the chef?” Without makeup, Bette’s eyes faded on her face. She looked older, more vulnerable.

“As I said—”

“If we all have to get out of bed in the middle of the night to hear whatever you have to say, I don’t see why the chef isn’t here. Someone go get him,” Bette said.

“Mother—” Portia said.

“Just because he got paid a lot of money doesn’t mean he can sit around all day reading comic books. Tony, you go.”

The Reverend looked confused, first at Penny, then Daniel. “I can’t.”

“Bette, what I’m trying to say is—” Daniel began.

“What are you waiting for?”

“The chef is dead,” Joanna finished. A choked sound came from Bette’s mouth. Bubbles wiggled off her shoulder and circled to the couch, where she jumped up next to Marianne. “I found him frozen to death in the dumbwaiter.” But for the sound of the fire, the room fell silent. Joanna realized how she’d become used to the wind’s roar. “I came downstairs for wood and felt a draft coming from the kitchen.”

“He was smoking, wasn’t he?” Sylvia said, thinking aloud. “Must have got stuck outside somehow. My God.”
 

“It wasn’t an accident. He was murdered. Someone, one of us” —Clarke’s voice caught— “sabotaged the dumbwaiter to lock him outside. Joanna tried to radio out for help, but the radio has been destroyed, too.”

A murmur spread through the great room, with guests each looking at each other. Daniel put a hand on the arm of the couch next to Sylvia and Marianne. Portia fidgeted with her camera. Bette and Clarke exchanged looks. Only Penny remained expressionless. She stared at the fire, seeming not to hear.

“I hate to say this, but Clarke is right. It had to be one of us. From here on out none of us can be alone,” Daniel said. “It’s not safe.”

“But that can’t be.” Sylvia’s voice rose in pitch. “One of us? No.” She pulled the blanket closer, as if it could ward off evil.

“I don’t get it, either,” Portia said. Her eyes darted from person to person. She lifted the camera from her neck and set it down. “But it was definitely intentional. I saw it.”

“What are the press going to say when they find out?” Bette said.

The group stared at her in disbelief. This was really her greatest concern? A moment passed before Portia snorted. Then the snort became a laugh. Then the laughter intensified until Portia’s body was wracked with it, and she couldn’t sit straight. Someone who couldn’t hear would have thought from her red, clenched face that she was crying. But she was laughing.

The Reverend moved to her side. “Are you all right, my child?”

Panic swept over Sylvia’s face, and her arm tightened on Marianne’s shoulders. “It can’t be true. I mean, why Chef Jules?”
 

“Mummy, you’re hurting me.”

“Remember, earlier this evening?” Joanna said. “Chef Jules insisted he didn’t put clams in Wilson’s sandwich. He said he could prove it. Maybe someone was afraid he would do just that.”

Portia’s laughter subsided. The room fell silent again as the implication of Joanna’s words sank in. Clarke had said Tony’s background report was complicated, and Tony sure didn’t talk much about his past. Joanna might suggest Penny be wary of his herbal concoctions. Her gaze shifted to Sylvia. Sylvia likely had the strongest motive. She gained the most from Wilson’s death. Since he and Penny hadn’t yet married, Marianne would likely inherit. As for the rest of them, who knows what motives they had?

“We don’t know why the chef was killed. Maybe it only has to do with him, and the rest of us are fine,” Bette pointed out. “Maybe it was personal. He was kind of annoying, really.”

“This isn’t a game, Bette. Someone killed the chef and probably Wilson, too, then destroyed the radio to make sure we couldn’t call out for help. Any one of us could be next. Get it?” Daniel said.

In one smooth motion, Sylvia lifted Marianne from the couch and ran down the hall. Her door slammed shut. Joanna bolted to her feet and exchanged glances with Daniel. She hurried to Sylvia’s room and knocked on the door.

“Are you all right?”

“Leave me alone. I’m not coming out until this is over.”

“You can’t just stay in there by yourself. We don’t know how long we’ll be here. I know it sounds crazy, but we’re safer if we’re together.”

Joanna heard the scrape of heavy furniture pushed along the wooden floor. In the background, a low wail rose from Marianne. “I have the fireplace poker, and I’ll use it on anyone who tries to come in,” Sylvia said.

The rest of the guests piled into the hall behind Joanna. Tony shouldered his way to the front and, one hand on the door knob, pushed against the door. It barely gave a hair.
 

“I’m not joking,” Sylvia yelled. “One step in this room, and you’ll regret it. You can risk your own lives if you want, but Marianne and I, we’ll” —her voice started to crack— “we’ll be safe.”

Marianne’s cry worsened to a full-on wail. Sylvia’s gulping sobs joined it. Joanna dropped back from the door. Up to this point, Sylvia had shown little emotion. Her ex, the father of her child, had died, and she’d expressed only quiet concern. Bette had been needling her all weekend, and she’d squelched her irritation. She had to break sometime. This was it.

Joanna bit her lip and tried again. “Sylvia, think. You don’t have heat in there. Or food. What are you going to do when Marianne needs breakfast?”

“It wouldn’t hurt the girl to lose a few pounds,” Bette said under her breath.

Reverend Tony stepped up. “Now, I know you’re upset. We all are. But all you’re doing by locking yourself away is hurting yourself and your child. The Buddha says that we might not always get what we want—”

“That’s the Rolling Stones, dimwit,” Bette interrupted.

Daniel pushed both Bette and the Reverend aside. “Let me try,” he said. He rested his forehead against the door. He placed a hand, palm flat to the panel, and pressed his lips together. Joanna prepared herself to witness a stern dressing-down.

“Sylvia,” he said. His voice was unexpectedly quiet, gentle.
 

Marianne still cried, but now in a low, rhythmic choke. Sylvia’s sobs had turned to rasping breaths.

“Syl, do you hear me?”
 

Nothing. The floorboards creaked as someone in the hall shifted his weight. Bubbles, knowing Marianne was inside, scratched at the door.

“Sylvia,” Daniel tried again. Joanna had never heard this coaxing tone of voice from him. It was velvet soft, a lover’s voice. “Syl,” he repeated. The few fingers on his right hand moved an inch down the door panel.

Marianne’s crying stopped. Sylvia was quiet, too. And then, “Daniel.”
 

“For crying out loud,” Bette said. “Do we have to stand here all night?”

Daniel cast her an irritated glance, then raised his eyes to Joanna’s. She nodded.

“Let’s go back to the fire,” she told the group assembled in the hall. Placing a hand in the small of Bette’s back, she corralled them toward the great room. Bette, the Reverend, Clarke, and Portia. She stopped. Where was Penny? She’d been here a minute ago—or had she?