“By being smarter than the average bear, that’s how,” Mitch replied. “She’ll lick this. And her reinforcements from the Major Crime Squad will be landing here before you know it. If they have to, they’ll analyze every single hair and fiber of clothing in Ada’s room until they find what they need. Which they will. Whoever did this can’t go anywhere. So just try to relax. Let the professionals handle it.”
“Mitch is totally right,” Spence said. “And speaking for myself, I am totally starved. I may have to eat my shoe if Jory doesn’t get in here soon with those sandwiches.”
“She should be back by now,” Jase said fretfully. “What’s taking her so long?”
“She’s talking to Des,” Mitch reminded him. “She’s okay, Jase.”
“What if she’s not?” Jase had started pacing around the taproom, scratching furiously at his beard.
“As long as she’s with Des, she’ll be perfectly safe,” Mitch said.
“No, she won’t!” Jase moaned. He was over by the fireplace now, wringing his hands, breathing heavily.
And they were all studying him in guarded silence.
“Why not, Jase?” Mitch asked.
Jase didn’t answer. Just paced in anxious silence, scratching at his beard so hard it was almost as if he wanted to tear it from his face.
“Jase, is there something you want to tell us?” Mitch pressed him gently. “Do you know something?”
“She knows.” He was over behind the bar now. “Des knows.”
“Knows what, Jase? What does Des know?”
“That… that…” Jase let out a strangled sob, then lunged suddenly for something that was stashed under the bar.
It was a handgun.
And he was pointing it at them, his eyes bright and wild.
“Oh, I don’t believe this,” Carly groaned.
“Y-You just shut up!” he stammered, aiming the gun right at her. “I know all about w-what you think of me. And you can just shut up. I… I run things now!”
“Sure, you do, Jase.” Mitch could feel his heart begin to race. And his mouth was very dry. “Just take it easy. We’re all friends here.”
“Bullshit!” Jase cried out. “We are not friends!”
“Is that thing loaded?” Aaron inquired. “Do we know for an actual fact that it’s loaded?”
“It sure is,” Teddy said. “No point in keeping it there if it’s not.”
Mitch frowned at Teddy. “You knew it was there?”
“Les bought it last year after he was held up in here by a pair of drunken louts from Rhode Island. It’s a Smith and Wesson, I believe he said. A thirty-eight.”
“You knew it was there?” Mitch repeated in disbelief. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s no use, Mitch,” Teddy replied with a vague wave of his hand. “I’m no good at the responsibility thing.”
“And that’s supposed to make it okay?” Aaron roared at him. “The fact that you’re a nitwit?”
“Why are you yelling at me?” Teddy protested. “He’s the one with the gun.”
“God, shut up, shut up, shut up!” Jase screamed at them. “All of you just… shut… up!”
They went silent, all eyes on the emotionally fragile young caretaker who was standing there behind the bar with the loaded thirty-eight.
“What’s going on, Jase?” Mitch asked him, trying to keep his voice calm.
“I’m the boss of you now, that’s what,” Jase said toughly as he edged his way out from behind the bar, waving the gun at them as if it were something alive, something he could barely restrain. “And I’m tired of being pushed around.”
“Nobody’s pushing you, man,” Spence said. “Just chill out and put down the gun.”
“He’s right, Jase,” Mitch agreed. “Let’s not lose our cool here.”
“I’m not losing anything,” Jase argued. “Mitch, put your hands behind your head right now. Go on, do it.”
Mitch obliged him, making no sudden moves. He did not want to stampede him into firing that gun.
“Now take me to Jory,” Jase ordered him. “Jory needs me.”
“I can definitely do that, Jase,” Mitch said. “But are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do? Because once we walk out of this room together, there’s no going back.”
“Hell, yeah, I’m sure.” Jase gave him a hard shove toward the taproom doorway, jabbing him in the back with the nose of the thirty-eight. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 16
“Wwhat Digoxin?” Jory gazed across the kitchen table at Des, mystified. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that a colleague of mine just hooked up by cell phone with Tom Maynard, our friendly home-town pharmacist.”
“Sure, I know Tom,” Jory said easily. “I went through school with his oldest girl, Tabitha. She got married last summer to Casey Earle. Casey’s major dull, but his dad owns Tri-County Paving so who cares, right?” She paused, shaking her head at Des. “What about Tom?”
“He confirmed that Norma recently needed an extra refill of her digoxin prescription. It seems Norma somehow misplaced a nearly full bottle. She searched the castle from top to bottom but couldn’t find it anywhere, she told him. Since Norma’s health insurer would only cover one refill per month, the extra one had to come out of her own pocket. So she was real mad at herself. That’s why Tom remembered it-because Norma was so mad at herself.”
Jory let out a soft laugh. “I’ll bet she was. Norma hated wasting so much as a nickel. Why are you telling me this, Des?”
“Because I’m almost positive that’s how Norma was killed-by an overdose of digoxin dissolved in her late- night cocoa. And because, according to Tom, Norma requested this extra refill a full two weeks ago, Jory. That lets out all of the folks who came here for Ada’s tribute. Whoever drugged Norma is someone who is here all of the time. Either you or Les, in other words. It had to be one of you, since I don’t peg Jase as any master schemer.”
Jory said nothing to this. Just sat there, her pink hands folded before her on the table. At her right elbow was the cutting board with the hunks of ham and cheese on it.
“It took me a good long while to arrive at you, if that’s any consolation.” Des studied her from across the table. Jory Hearn did not look at all like a bad girl. She was pretty in a wholesome sort of way, hardworking, capable, agreeable. The truth seemed almost impossible to believe. But Des did believe it. “Mostly, I couldn’t figure your motive,” she went on. “I kept thinking Aaron and Hannah must have cooked up the whole thing. He’s the one with the huge financial upside. She’s the one whose mom is a nurse. That girl knows her first aid-I figured her for the digoxin idea. It all played. Until Les got himself murdered, that is. Then my attention shifted to him and Teddy. Teddy’s strapped for money, as was Les, and Norma had provided for both of them in her will. Being her executor, Les knew all about that. I started thinking that maybe he and Teddy murdered her together, then had themselves a falling-out over Ada. Teddy did appear to have the best opportunity for killing Les. He was downstairs playing the piano when Les and Mitch were out in the woodshed. The rest of you were locked up tight, or so I thought. And Teddy did mention to me that he’d once given Norma a tape of himself playing “More Than You Know.” What if he’d slipped that tape of his into the battery-powered sound system in the dining hall and cranked it up good and loud? I’d be sitting there in the upstairs hallway thinking he was in the Sunset Lounge, playing, when he was actually outside murdering Les. It was plausible. Of course, once I found out about the trapdoors, I realized it could have been any of you. And now that we’ve spoken to Tom Maynard, everyone else is off the hook. Like I said, they weren’t here two weeks ago when you stole Norma’s pills. And that’s where you blew it, girl.”
Jory remained stubbornly silent. She wasn’t giving an inch.
So Des kept going. “I’m figuring you pretty much had to play it the way you did. You couldn’t sneak a few capsules out of the bottle, here and there, because Norma would come up short at the end of the month and notice it. You had to make it look as if she’d misplaced an entire bottle. Also, in fairness to you, you had no way of
