Steamed to Death (11 page)

Alice’s face brightened for the first time. “I agree. Is it possible to eavesdrop?”

“I think so.” The thought of getting caught with her ear to the proverbial door made Gigi’s stomach suddenly turn over. “They’re in the dining room. Mr. Winchel was finishing up a late breakfast when Mertz showed up. I heard Anja showing him in. If we’re very quiet we can stand in the butler’s pantry and ease the door open slightly.”

Alice all but rubbed her hands together in excitement. She followed close on Gigi’s heels as Gigi pushed open the door between the kitchen and the butler’s pantry. It was a smallish room lined with glass-fronted cabinets filled with serving pieces and glassware. Under the counter on one side were rows of specially lined drawers for silverware, and on the other side was a dishwasher, and next to it, a full-size refrigerator. Felicity had liked to entertain and had made sure her house was well equipped for it.

The swinging door to the dining room was partially glass, but the glass, which was original to the house, was etched in a lacy pattern that obscured a clear view and turned everything beyond into shadows. Gigi hoped it would be enough to prevent Mertz and Winchel from seeing her and Alice. She eased the door open an inch and leaned as close as she could to the crack. Alice was right behind her—she could feel her breath on the back of her neck.

Winchel and Mertz were seated at the dining table, Winchel relaxed in his chair at the head, his breakfast things pushed to one side. Mertz was stiff and formal. Gigi got the impression that he would have been much more comfortable standing. Their voices were low and barely discernible. Gigi closed her eyes in concentration.

“What are they saying?” Alice whispered into her ear.

“Shhh.” Gigi strained even harder. This time she caught a few disjointed words . . .
autopsy
 . . .
findings
 . . .
report
. “Something about an autopsy,” Gigi whispered as quietly as she could.

She closed her eyes again and tried to focus. Mertz’s voice rose slightly, and his words drifted toward Gigi loud and clear. Alice must have heard, too, because she gasped and accidentally leaned against Gigi.

Gigi lost her balance and fell forward, swinging open the door and catapulting herself into the dining room with Alice close behind.

Chapter 9

Gigi had experienced many awkward moments in her life. Not to mention many embarrassing ones. But on a scale of one to ten, this latest rated at least a seismic twenty. It was the tsunami of embarrassments. She was quite certain she would be having nightmares about it for years to come.

Fortunately, her Irish and Italian ancestors had equipped her with a quick wit and even quicker tongue. As soon as she ceased her jet propulsion forward toward the dining table and had regained her balance, she asked in a perfectly calm voice, “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Perhaps some more coffee?” Alice gestured toward the pantry from which they had come.

The startled look on Winchel’s face turned to one of dismissal, and he shook his head. “No, thank you. That will be all for now.”

Gigi and Alice backed hastily into the butler’s pantry and breathed a collective sigh of relief when the door swung to in back of them. Then they burst into giggles and laughed until tears ran down their faces.

When Gigi finally collected herself, she grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter and blew her nose. Alice dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her apron.

“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe we did that.”

“Neither can I,” Gigi said before turning serious. “But did you hear what Mertz told Felicity’s husband?”

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t.”

Gigi motioned for Alice to come closer. “The results of the autopsy came back. And Felicity was drugged before she was put in the sauna. Some kind of tranquilizer. Apparently it was her own prescription, but they found more than ten times the normal amount in her system.”

“Enough to make her too drowsy to rescue herself from the sauna?”

“It would seem so.”

• • •

Gigi thought about this latest nugget of news as she chopped and diced and roasted and stirred. The butternut squash soup was ready to be put on the sideboard so guests could help themselves. She would offer it with a dollop of Greek yogurt on top—far fewer calories than heavy cream or sour cream—and a sprinkle of candied pecans. She had a platter of chicken ready—breasts pounded thin and rolled around a stuffing of diced tomatoes, spinach sautéed with garlic, and feta cheese—along with an orzo salad tossed with lemon zest, olive oil and sliced black olives.

Gigi tried to focus on what she was doing, but her mind kept circulating pictures of poor hapless Felicity asleep in the increasing heat of the sauna, unable to save herself. Then her thoughts turned to Sienna, and her stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. She knew Sienna hadn’t had anything to do with it. But how to convince Mertz of that?

Alice was going to help Anja serve, but meanwhile she was taking a short break, her apron put aside, her feet up and her nose buried in the
Woodstone Times
. Gigi could hear the clink of silver and the occasional ping of china from the butler’s pantry where Anja was organizing the serving pieces for the lunch.

Gigi was putting the chicken in the oven when a car turned into the drive, quickly followed by another and another. The service was over and the guests were arriving.

Moments later, they heard the front door open, and Anja scuttled out of the pantry toward the foyer to help with coats. Drinks were being served in the formal living room, and Alice was going to help Anja with that, too.

Gigi bent over the stove, making the final preparations. Putting together a multicourse meal was like conducting an orchestra—each dish coming together at the right moment and in tune with the others. The oven timer pinged, and Gigi removed the chicken and tented it with foil. In turn, she slid a pan of apple cake batter into the oven. It was a simple dessert that she would dress up with a side of crème anglaise.

Gigi fanned her face with an oven mitt. With the burners going and both ovens lit, the kitchen was getting warm. She stepped into the hall briefly, which was still slightly chilly from the front door’s opening and closing. Winchel came down the corridor, a glass of amber-colored liquid in his hand.

“Miss Fitzgerald. Why don’t you join us?”

Gigi had no desire to face the crowd in the living room, but it would be a good opportunity to snoop. She ditched her apron and ducked into the powder room. She’d brought along a change of clothes in case Anja or Alice needed help serving—plain black slacks and a simple beige sweater. She donned them quickly, checked the security of her ponytail and tried to slip into the gathering as inconspicuously as possible.

Winchel was in the corner, surrounded by tall men in suits. Their expressions were uniformly grim, and Gigi wondered what they were discussing. An onlooker would have thought that Vanessa must have been an extremely close relative. She was the only person in the room dressed in unrelieved black, although how appropriate the dress was, Gigi wasn’t sure. It was long sleeved but low cut, and hugged her curves tightly. Vanessa was in an intense tête-à-tête with Don. Gigi caught a flash of brilliance as Vanessa waved her hand in the air. A huge diamond flashed from the ring finger of her right hand. Had Don already cashed in the insurance policy on Felicity?

Gigi took her glass of wine and sidled as close as she could get to the two of them.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Gigi heard Don say, but not without a note of admiration in his voice.

Vanessa faked a very attractive pout and waved her hand around in front of Don’s face. “It was worth it, don’t you think?”

Anja slid between Gigi and the couple with a tray of bite-size croquettes. Gigi felt like swearing. What had Don and Vanessa been talking about? Had Vanessa had something to do with Felicity’s death? Gigi knew she wanted to be the star of
For Better or For Worse
, but to Gigi it seemed as if all she had to do was bide her time until Felicity was eased off the show. Surely she hadn’t resorted to murder.

“We have too many suspects,” Gigi murmured to Alice when they were back in the kitchen dishing up bowls of butternut squash soup.

“Don and Derek . . .” Alice counted on her fingers. “Is there someone else?”

Gigi nodded. “I heard Don and Vanessa talking in there. It sounds as if Vanessa may have had a hand in things.”

Alice sighed. “Does no one mourn that poor creature? It’s so sad.”

• • •

For the next hour, they were all run off their feet and had no time for anything else. Finally, the last plate of apple cake was taken out to the dining room, and Gigi sank into a chair. She kicked her shoes off and rubbed the balls of her feet. Cooking was sometimes more of an endurance sport than anything else, she reflected. Maybe she needed to start exercising to build up her strength?

Anja came into the kitchen. Her face was drawn, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” Gigi suggested. “The dishes are done, and you can put them away later.”

“I promised to take Derek a cup of tea with honey. He is not feeling well.”

“I’ll do that,” Gigi offered. “You go lie down for a bit.”

• • •

Gigi wondered what was really wrong with Derek as she boiled water and steeped an Earl Grey tea bag in the pot. Was he feeling remorseful over stealing from Felicity after all she’d done for him?

Gigi found a tray in the butler’s pantry and arranged the teapot, cup and saucer along with cream, sugar and honey. She had no idea how Derek took his tea, but he was welcome to make his own.

Winchel was still closeted in the library with the serious-faced men who had been at the funeral, so Gigi decided to go up the back stairs. She thought about the leaf Mertz’s team had found on the steps and wondered again how he could possibly tie that to Sienna. Certainly Sienna did go up and down those stairs to get to her office, but so did any number of other people.

Derek’s door was partially open. Gigi knocked softly and waited. Nothing. She knocked again. Had he fallen asleep? If so, then he certainly didn’t need his tea. She pushed the door an inch or two and peered into the room. Heavy tasseled drapes had been pulled haphazardly across the large windows. The bed was unmade, its dark red velvet spread bunched up at the foot. The room was clearly empty. Clothes were scattered in a path from the dresser to the en suite bathroom. That door was open as well, and although Gigi listened, it didn’t sound as if anyone was in there.

She would leave the tea on the bedside table. She pushed aside a graphic novel that was bent open to a page in the middle of the book, a television remote control and an empty eyeglass case. Her hand brushed something and knocked it to the floor.

Gigi grumbled under her breath and got down on her hands and knees to search for whatever it was she’d knocked off the table. Although how likely Derek was to notice anything missing, she couldn’t begin to guess. She lifted up the drooping top sheet and peered underneath the bed. Something was there, but it was too dark to see. She swept her hand along the rug until she was able to grasp the object by feel.

She edged her hand out from under the bed and leaned back on her heels to examine the object she had retrieved. It was a prescription bottle—for a generic brand of a well-known tranquilizer. But instead of “Derek Winchel”
on the label it read “Felicity Davenport.”

And the bottle was empty.

Chapter 10

Gigi stared at the bottle for a long minute before dropping it on the carpet as if it had suddenly turned radioactive. She had added her fingerprints to the potential murder weapon! And she had possibly destroyed some real concrete evidence. She groaned. Why hadn’t she left the bottle under the bed and called Mertz?

Gigi decided she had to tell Mertz about the bottle even though it meant risking his wrath. She crept back down the stairs to the kitchen. Voices still emanated from the library, and Anja was nowhere to be seen. The bicycle she often used to ride into town wasn’t leaning against the back railing where she tended to keep it.

Gigi slipped into her jacket, pocketed her phone. She decided it would be safest to phone Mertz from her car. A strong breeze whipped her hair back from her face when she opened the back door, and she paused for a moment to catch her breath. Swift clouds scudded across the gun metal gray sky, and a few plump drops of rain spattered onto Gigi’s windshield as she slid into the front seat. She pulled her cell from her pocket and dialed the police station. She punched in the last number and hesitated. She really, really didn’t want to hear what he was going to say, but she stabbed the talk button decisively.

It took three tries to route her to Mertz’s phone. His economical “Hello” gave nothing away. Gigi crossed her fingers and prayed he would be in a good mood.

“I think I found some evidence that relates to Felicity Davenport’s death,” Gigi said after introducing herself.

Mertz groaned so loud that Gigi pulled the phone away from her ear.

“We always appreciate it when the public comes forward with information,” Mertz said, sounding as if he were reading from a handbook of some sort. He sighed and his tone softened. “Look, I haven’t had anything to eat all day. I’m headed out for a bite. Can you meet me at Declan’s?”

This time Gigi groaned. Why did everyone want to eat at Declan’s? What was wrong with the Woodstone Diner for a change?

“Well?”

“Sure,” Gigi said reluctantly. “I’ll meet you there.”

Gigi clicked off the call and tossed the phone onto the passenger’s seat. She let her head drop forward until her forehead rested against the steering wheel. It was really difficult, but she managed to resist the incredibly strong urge to smack her head repeatedly against the wheel.

• • •

Gigi had a Gourmet De-Lite package ready to deliver to Madeline Stone for her dinner. She’d made some extra butternut squash bisque and had included a portion of the chicken and spinach rollatini with lemon orzo. It was easy enough to drop it off on her way to Declan’s.