The Reunion (17 page)

Panting from excited exertion, I slowly rose on shaking legs, staggered back against the wall for a moment, and waited until my breathing and heart rate slowed before crossing the floor. I paused at the door. The hallway was empty and the path to the stairwell clear. I left Suzanne’s room and hurried to my escape route.

A good kill, but God, I’m tired. I never expected killing to be so exhausting. I took a chance, but it worked. Maybe I should wait for Suzanne to show. Finding the two of them dead—together—would be a nice touch. No, leave now. Catch your breath, then go find the bitch. Find her and make her pay. Soon they’ll all be dead, and I can rest.

I exited to the stairwell, the door closing with a dull thud.

Chapter Ten

Zach finished his classmate’s interrogations first and strolled from the bar into the lobby. People still wandered about even though it was after one o’clock. A group of classmates sat on the sofas and chairs arranged in the center of the lobby. Someone in the bar had mentioned talking with Marcella and her husband on the terrace. One of the women spotted Zach and waved him over. He recognized a couple of other familiar faces and decided to join them.

“Good to see you,” Rudy Conrad said as Zach sat next to a man he didn’t know. “Do you know everybody?”

“I know Marcella, Carol, and you.”

“This is my wife, Liz.” Rudy gestured to a petite blonde next to him.

A man in a brown suit reached for Zach’s hand. “I’m Stan Saunders, Marcie’s husband.”

The third man also shook hands. “I’m Adam Quincy, Carol’s date.”

“Nice to meet all of you. Sorry the reunion took such a terrible turn,” Zach commented.

Everyone shifted in their seats and Zach wondered if he’d been too abrupt in bringing up the subject of murder. This group wasn’t swilling booze in the bar where no one had questioned why he’d been so curious. These people would. The end tables were strewn with coffee cups.

Zach could handle business and binary codes, but this idle chit-chat disguised as info gathering was new to him.

“Mind if I join you, too?” Meghan requested from behind him.

He twisted in his seat and breathed a sigh of relief. Reinforcements had arrived.

“Meghan, good to see you. You look great,” Marcie exclaimed. “How did you do it? I swear I gain weight on every diet I try.”

Meghan laughed as Zach leapt to his feet. “Here take my seat.”

She accepted the offer. “I looked in the mirror one day and decided it was time to either do something about my weight or have ‘Goodyear’ tattooed on my rear end. And since I have an aversion to needles, I chose the former.”

Zach liked the self-deprecating humor. Showed Meghan was well-grounded emotionally and didn’t take herself too seriously.

“Well, before you leave, please tell me the secret of your success. My ass could use it,” Marcy added.

“And you, Zach, you’ve changed, too,” Carol said. “I’ll be honest; I didn’t recognize either of you.”

“I saw the two of you dancing and wondered if the reunion had been crashed by a couple of freeloaders,” Rudy added with a chuckle.

Meghan eyed the coffee cups scattered on the tables. “Where can a girl get some coffee?”

“Complimentary over in the corner.” Stan indicated the direction with his chin.

“I’ll go. Cream and sugar?” Zach confirmed. At her nod he left. Returning, he sat on the arm of the sofa next to Meghan.

“So, what have you all been up to these past twenty years?” she asked.

Zach eyed Meghan as she listened to the lives and times of her classmates, and then questioned them about the evening’s more gruesome event. “I was having a good time until Eileen found poor Annabelle,” she stated.

“I still can’t believe it,” Marcie said with a shudder. “I saw Annabelle leave for the garden and never thought for a moment something sinister lurked.”

“That’s right, you were on the terrace with us,” Meghan commented. “Did anyone follow her?”

“Can’t say. I saw Dan Masterson run up the steps, but we were joking with Carl and Eileen and didn’t pay any attention to much else.”

“I remember him,” Stan added sipping coffee from his cup. “He ran onto the terrace, stopped to smooth his hair, and then walked into the ballroom.”

“I heard they caught some guy trying to break into cars in the parking lot. Maybe
he
wandered into the garden and attacked her,” Liz contributed. “Glad I didn’t decide to commune with nature, too.”

“Did you see her leave?” Meghan queried.

“I saw someone in a blue dress leave. A lot of people came and went, but I don’t know who.”

“I saw Dan on the terrace, and I remember Betty Coleman and her husband walking down the steps. And Tom Ecklund,” Rudy told them.

“Tom? He was in the garden?” Zach asked in a surprised voice.

He glanced at Meghan who raised her eyebrows and shrugged. This was the first he’d heard of Tom Ecklund anywhere near the terrace
before
the body was found.

“Yeah, but damned if I know when. Don’t recall seeing him come back.”

“I don’t remember seeing much of anybody,” Carol said. “I stepped out on the terrace for a smoke and talked with Alicia Raines for a while. Suzanne came out with a couple of drinks and headed for the shadows at the far end. She ignored us. I figured she had a guy stashed over behind the potted plants. I thought I saw her leaving the terrace, too. Guess now it must have been Annabelle.”

“That’s right,” her date replied. “I came out about that time. I remember somebody else going into the garden a few minutes later.”

“Who?” Meghan and Zach spoke as one.

“I have no idea. Just a figure. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. By the time I turned my head, whoever it was had disappeared.”

“Too bad none of us paid any attention,” Meghan commented.

“Why would we? The place was crowded, and we all had our own conversations going,” Zach answered in a bland tone. Conversation had been the last thing on their minds.

He wasn’t sure where all this questioning was leading. So far, no one had seen much of anything that would help them find a killer.

“Hi, is there room for one more?”

Glory Ecklund stood at the edge of the group. She’d changed from the black dress into a pair of navy blue slacks and a matching long sleeved t-shirt. It wasn’t much of an improvement. The garments hung on her thin frame.

“Of course not,” Zach said, rising. He felt sorry for her. She’d worked her rear end off for her husband’s reunion and Annabelle’s murder had destroyed it all. Poor Glory.

Stan also stood. “Here take my seat. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

She dumped her large purse on the floor and sank into the plump cushions. “Oh, no thanks.”

“I thought you went up to bed,” Meghan murmured.

“I did, but couldn’t sleep. Tom’s snoring like a buzz saw and the murder upset me, so I decided to come back down for a while. I sat on the terrace to think. Such a horrible end to what I hoped would be a memorable reunion.”

“It was that all right,” Carol replied.

“I meant memorable in a good way. I was on my way back upstairs when I saw you guys and came over.”

“How are you feeling?” Meghan asked.

“I’m fine. It was silly of me to faint like that, but first you said the body was Suzanne’s, and then when she popped out from behind the bushes, I just lost it. I guess it was the combination of the shock of another body, and the heat in the ballroom.”

“Another body?” Meghan questioned.

“In addition to Tami and Eddie, I mean.” She brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead and rearranged a pin in the knot of hair in her nape.

“You should have cooled off on the terrace earlier,” Marcie suggested.

“Actually, I did. Took a little walk in the garden, too.”

“When was this?” Zach asked. Glory was in the garden, too? Seemed as if the entire class had taken a damned stroll. This interrogation wasn’t going well. There were too many people and a huge time frame.

“Oh, I can’t remember. I was looking for Tom.” She shifted in her seat and flashed a smile before casting her eyes down. “I—I was kind of worried about him.”

“Worried? Why?” Meghan wondered.

“He’d had quite a bit to drink tonight. His diet sodas had a little additive—bourbon, I think. At any rate, I couldn’t find him for the longest time, so I went outside. I thought maybe he was sick or, well, passed out, somewhere. I noticed a few people on the terrace, but the garden attracted a lot of walkers.”

“Do you remember who you saw?” Zach hoped his question didn’t sound like he was playing junior sheriff. So far, no one had brought the subject up as to why he and Meghan were asking.

Glory shook her head and stared at him with wide eyes. “Gosh, not really. I only went a little way down the path on the right. It was dark and I didn’t want to twist an ankle in that gravel. I was returning when I saw someone, Dan, I think, charge up the steps. I caught a glimpse of someone else near the pathway to the pond, but don’t know who. I came back inside and worked my way around the ballroom again. I finally found Tom near the terrace doors.” She smiled. “At least he wasn’t drunk like I feared. It seems he was looking for me, and we just kept missing each other.”

This was the most Glory had said all night, but for such a short time outside, she sure packed in a lot of information.

“Did you see either Suzanne or Annabelle?” Meghan asked.

She shook her head. “No. Like I said, it was really dark. Tom and I were about to call it a night when Eileen screamed the house down.”

Carol sighed. “We spoke with Mary and Jack Samuels for a minute, and then returned to the dance floor. I didn’t even hear the scream.”

“You sure ask a lot of questions,” Adam commented to Meghan. “Are you a cop?”

Zach held his breath. Would everyone clam up now?

She drained her coffee cup and set it on the table. “Hardly. I’m a mystery novelist. I guess my mind works that way. I want to know why, and how, and who. Occupational hazard.” Meghan crossed her legs. “You know who I didn’t see tonight? Monica Evans. Is she here? I can’t believe she’d miss the twentieth reunion.”

“She’s here,” Marcie asserted. “I spoke with her just before dinner. Her husband wasn’t feeling well and didn’t come. I think she may have gone home before all the excitement.”

“That’s too bad,” Carol replied. “If she thought for one moment she’d miss seeing Suzanne Wayland floating in the koi pond, she’d have stuck around.”

Zach drank some of his now lukewarm coffee.
Seems a lot of people wouldn’t have minded finding Suzanne in the koi pond.

Glory sat up straight with an earnest look on her face. “Oh, don’t be unkind, Carol. I know Suzanne’s hard to get along with. She and I had words earlier this evening, but she was upset. Dave Coryell left her alone most of the night.”

“If Monica wanted to see anyone in the pond, it would have been Tami Robinson,” Rudy suggested. He winked at his wife. “Monica and I dated for a while in high school. She and Tami had one hell of a rivalry going for the head cheerleader spot. When Monica won, Tami did a lot of character assassination. Monica spent days afterward trying to think up ways to kill her.”

Liz Conrad laughed. “I used to think up ways to kill the girl who stole my boyfriend in seventh grade. Monica—was she the tall brunette I met at the memorial wall?”

“Probably. Wearing a yellow chiffon dress?” Marcie quizzed.

“Yes.”

“That’s her.”

“She seemed nice. She identified all the people who had died,” Liz added.

“What was her reaction to Tami’s death?” Zach asked.

“Nothing as I recall. She talked more about some teacher who’d died recently.”

“Oh, that would be Clara Sylvester,” Glory chimed in. “She broke her hip last spring and her son arranged for her to stay in a convalescent home near him in Muncie. I understand she died suddenly. She must have been over eighty.”

“Eighty? Try a hundred and eighty. I think she was eighty when she taught government,” Rudy joked.

Zach chuckled. “That’s true. She used to head up the youth group at the Methodist Church. Stern and always wanting to know what we evil teenagers were doing. My mother made me go to the Wednesday night meetings, hoping I’d find a girlfriend. Boy, was she ever wrong.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Glory replied with a smile. “Divine talked about how smart you were. Said she wished she had your brains for math.”

Silence settled over the group at the mention of her sister. Glory had spoken as though Divine was in the next room. Her voice had no inflection, but then, her sister’s death had occurred a long time ago. Zach couldn’t think of anything to say.
What do you say to someone whose sister killed herself?

Zach remembered Meghan telling him Glory had informed her of Divine’s death in very blunt, unemotional terms.
Maybe that’s the way she deals with it. The whole family was a little odd. Used to quote Scriptures
.

Carol cleared her throat and broke the silence.

“Meghan, since you seem to have taken an interest in this case, let me ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“What’s this I hear about a stun gun being used to incapacitate Annabelle?”

“A stun gun!” Glory exclaimed. She turned a wide, shocked gaze onto Carol.

“No kidding? Did you know about this, Marcie?” her husband asked with a concerned expression.

“First I’ve heard.”

Stan shifted in his chair. “I don’t like it. Maybe we shouldn’t stay here tonight. Go find another hotel.”

“I—I don’t think anything like that has been found,” Meghan stammered.

“Why would you think that?” Zach demanded. Damn, had they been that careless?

“Because Jennifer Hutchins passed by your table in the bar and heard you talking about it.”

“I heard about it, too,” Liz added. “In the ladies’ room. Two women were talking.”

Carol raised her eyebrows. “How about it? Is there a stun gun?”

“I really don’t know. Zach and I were just tossing out a theory, that’s all.”