somewhere, Mitch figured.
“Okay, I need you folks to go your rooms now,” Des informed them. “I’ll be taking witness statements from each of you. The way this works, it’s one person to a room. So Aaron and Carly, you’ll have to split up. One of you can have your regular room, the other can take room eight. Les, you’re in room ten.”
“Des, do we have to split up, too?” Jory asked, meaning her and Jase.
“I’m afraid so. You’ll be in nine, Jase in eleven.”
“We really shouldn’t be separated.” Jory glanced over at her brother, whose eyes were still fastened on the carpet. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Why, what’s the problem?” Des asked her, frowning.
“It’s not a problem so much as it is a…” Jory hesitated, then backed down. “Well, okay. If it’s just for a little while.”
“Is it just me or does all of this seem a bit extreme?” Spence wondered aloud.
“The word I’m thinking of is cruel,” Carly said.
“Outrageous,” Aaron concurred, nodding his big meaty head.
“You’re absolutely right,” Des said. “Murder is outrageous.”
“Honestly, Des, we’re all cold and famished and terribly frightened,” Carly said. “And instead of offering us comfort you’re banishing us to solitary confinement. Why can’t we just gather together in the taproom? There’s a fire, food. We can console one another.”
“Not just yet,” Des replied.
“Well, why not?” Aaron demanded.
“You’re witnesses, that’s why,” Des told him, refusing to be budged. “Look, I know these rooms are unheated. I know you’re all hungry and scared. But the simple truth is that two women are dead. My job is to figure out why, and your job is to cooperate with me. If you don’t, then you’re impeding an official state police investigation. I promise you this won’t take long. Besides, it’s for your own protection.”
“She’s right about that part,” Hannah allowed. “At least we’ll be safe this way. Should we bolt our doors?”
“You can if it will make you feel better. As long as you stay in your rooms, you should be fine. Oh, until we’re done, I’ll also need your cell phones.”
“But I have calls to make,” Spence protested.
“No calls. Please hand over your phones to Mitch right now.”
Reluctantly, they did so. Although, when Mitch arrived at Aaron, he encountered major resistance.
“Why doesn’t he have to sit in a cold room by himself?” Aaron groused, refusing to hand over his phone.
“Because he’s the only person besides myself who I know for certain is innocent,” Des replied.
“And just exactly how do you know that?”
“He and I were together downstairs when Ada was killed, that’s how.”
Aaron considered this for a moment before he grudgingly shoved his phone at Mitch, who was busy thinking that one other person had in fact been with them at the time of Ada’s death: Teddy had been in the dining room that whole time, watching the snow outside the windows. But Teddy was not exactly a bystander to these proceedings. He was a member of the family, and therefore could be a part of whatever, whoever was apparently trying to destroy it, one life at a time.
“Please go to your rooms now,” Des said to them. “I’ll be in to take your statements soon.”
There was some further grumbling, but not much. There was too much fear present. Several of them double- locked their doors behind them. Mitch wasn’t sure how many.
Teddy lingered in the doorway of room two. “Des, I wonder if I might have a quick word with you,” he said to her in a soft voice.
“What is it, Teddy?”
“Do you remember how I told you I was awake last night, waiting for…?” Teddy glanced at Mitch, coloring slightly. “For Norma to come to me?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“At about two-thirty I heard Les and Norma’s door open and close, followed by footsteps. I was expecting my own door to open, but that didn’t happen… She went downstairs instead.”
“How do you know this? Did you follow her?”
“I never left my bed. But I could hear her. That old staircase creaks like crazy.”
“I see,” Des said thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you mention this to me earlier?”
“The specifics didn’t seem worth mentioning. But things are different now, aren’t they?”
“They are.”
“Teddy, how can you be sure it was Norma who you heard?” Mitch asked. “How do you know it wasn’t Les?”
“You’re absolutely right,” Teddy admitted. “I don’t know that. I’m simply assuming it, since Norma often went downstairs in the night. Les seldom does. But wait, there’s more-I also heard another door open and close a few minutes later, followed by more footsteps heading downstairs.”
“Whose?” Des asked.
“Ada’s.”
Des studied him intently. “You’re sure about this?”
“Positive.” Teddy looked across at room three. “It was her door and her footsteps. The old girl had an unusually light tread. You may have noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed,” Des said. “You believe Ada followed Norma downstairs, is that it?”
“Yes, I do,” Teddy said.
“Did you hear them come back up?”
“After maybe a half hour,” he replied, nodding. “Ada came back up first. I could hear her door open and close. I figured Norma would wait awhile downstairs for her to go back to sleep. Then she would, you know, come to me. But that didn’t happen. She returned to her own room a moment or two after Ada did and never came back out again. I fell asleep shortly thereafter,” Teddy said dejectedly. “May I go down and play now?”
Des frowned at him. “Play?”
“The piano. I get terribly uneasy if I’m away from the keys for long.”
“I’m afraid not, Teddy. I need you in your room. But I would like to borrow your desk chair, if you don’t mind.”
Teddy didn’t mind. She took the wooden chair and carried it out into the hall, then closed Teddy in his room. She and Mitch were all alone in the hall now.
“This is for you.” She positioned the chair at the top of the stairs, facing the corridor. “I have to go downstairs real quick and radio this in. Can you make sure no one leaves their rooms while I’m gone?”
“Not a problem. If you need it, there’s an ice pick under the tarp in the back of my truck. Also a scraper. And, hey, you’d better take this,” he offered, fishing his battery-powered lock de-icer from his pocket.
“I’m all set,” she said, patting her coat pocket. “What I wish you had on you was a weapon.”
“Des, that’s just not me.”
“There’s a couple of hunting rifles in the kitchen.”
“No way. I don’t believe in guns.”
“Mitch, this isn’t about guns. It’s about protection.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, suit yourself.” She lingered there at the top of the stairs for a moment, furrowing her brow. Mitch knew why. She needed to spitball. When she’d worked Major Crimes she’d had her partner, Soave, to bounce her ideas off. Right now, she had only the lead film critic for the most prestigious of New York City’s three daily newspapers. “I’m thinking that more than one person may be behind this,” she said to him slowly.
“Why would you think that?”
“Because Ada said they to me,” she replied. “Last night in the ladies’ lounge. We were talking about my work, or so I thought, when out of nowhere she said, ‘They will never, ever get it.’ Meaning this castle, I think. She was so cryptic about it, I wasn’t positive. I even wondered if maybe she wasn’t completely together in the head. But now I’m thinking that she knew something. Maybe something Norma told her. Something that got both of them killed. Ada wanted to have more words with me this morning. She was quite insistent about it. And whatever those
