You can’t mix them with something. You know the one about you can get a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink? Well, somebody could have handed the s’more to Izabelle, but they couldn’t have made her eat it. She must have picked up the wrong bag, or maybe it was mismarked. Feel better?”
“Yes,” I said, sighing in relief.
“As for the person in the room, I don’t have enough information to give you an answer. But it’s probably something stupid like someone who couldn’t wait for her book to come out and wanted to see it. So, there you are, no murder this weekend.”
I turned toward him, ready to give him a thank-you hug, but I stopped short. Along with his other attributes, Mason had a high cuddle quotient. And it would have been all too easy to let the hug morph into curling up next to him.
“Got to go,” I said, my voice cracking, as I jumped off the bed and made it to the doorway in two steps. I heard Mason chuckling behind me, and I bet he’d had the same smile then as he was wearing here now at breakfast.
Mason reached for the coffee pot and poured me a cup as I glanced around the table. Sheila was sitting next to Adele. I think their sharing a room was really getting to Sheila. Her shoulders were hunched and she was crocheting in her lap. It was therapeutic crochet. I doubted she even knew what she was making or cared if her stitches were all over the place. This was about the meditative quality. Besides, she knew she could rip it out later.
When Adele turned to hang her jacket on the back of her chair, I saw something that made me jump. “Where did you get that?” I said, pointing as she held a pouch purse with the strap hanging down.
Adele reacted with a funny look, and I realized I might have sounded a little frantic. She set it in the middle of the table with a gesture that implied it was there for me to admire. Hers was red and the flowers were white, but the style was identical to the bag I’d found in the plants. “What do you think? I made it, Pink.” Dinah looked over from the other table, and when she saw the purse, her eyes widened. “If you want, I can help you make one,” Adele said. “The directions are in Izabelle’s book. She used some glow-in-the-dark stuff for the flowers, but I just went for the sport-weight yarn I’d used for the bag.” At the mention of Izabelle’s name, Jym asked how she was doing.
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t looking forward to what I had to do. Everyone turned toward me, waiting for an answer, which confirmed that no one knew yet. I was still composing my thoughts when Bennett and Nora came in and went to the neighboring table, and momentarily the attention turned to them. Even if nobody exactly recognized him, he had a kind of magnetism that drew your eyes to him. His manner was gentlemanly as he pulled out a chair for his wife and gestured for her to sit. I was glad she’d decided to give the dining hall food a try after all. Bennett made a little nod of greeting to the group, and then everyone turned back to me.
“Well, Pink,” Adele said finally, “is Izabelle going to make it back from the hospital in time to do her workshop?”
“Not exactly.” Did I really say that? How lame. Once I actually said she was dead, everyone would realize what a bad comment it was. Better just to be direct. I was about to say it when Sergeant French came into the dining room and glanced around until he saw our group. As he walked toward our table, he put on a somber expression. I might as well leave the job of telling the group to him. He certainly had far more experience. And, maybe, it was the coward’s way out.
“Ms. Pink.” He acknowledged me with a nod when he stopped next to me; then he greeted the rest of our group. He turned back to me with a question in his eyes: “They don’t know, do they?” I guess it was pretty obvious. All the smiling and cheerful conversations didn’t go with having just heard someone had died.
Sergeant French checked out the group some more. I suppose he was sizing them up, trying to figure if anybody was going to faint or anything. His head stopped moving when his gaze reached Bennett. It was obvious, from the perplexed squint of his eyes, that he was trying to place Bennett, as if maybe he had seen him on the Ten Most Wanted list.
Nora apparently was used to people staring at her husband that way and volunteered that he was on
Sergeant French studied Bennett’s face and then brightened. “That’s right. He plays the older brother. What’s his name?”
“Buzz Gibraltar,” Nora said. “If you watch the show, you probably realize the story always turns on his assessment of the situation. Nobody understands, but he’s really the star.”
Nora always seemed to be playing the manager, talking up her client. Did she have any life of her own? Did she want any life of her own? Or was she content to be an extension of Bennett?
By now everybody was staring at the craggy-faced policeman in the dark uniform-and not in a good way. I had to do something. How would it look that I hadn’t told them?
“Look, everybody, I need to tell you about Izabelle,” I said quickly. “You all know she got sick on the beach last night. There isn’t any soft way to put it. She isn’t coming back. She died right after she got to the hospital.”
The group gave a collective gasp, and a few people made comments that got lost in the din.
Bennett’s voice was heard over the noise. “What happened? The last time I saw her, she looked fine.”
“And when was that, Mr. Franklyn?” Sergeant French asked, taking out his notebook.
“I don’t remember the exact time, but everyone was checking out the s’mores bags Commander Blaine set out. I think she was picking out one.”
“And then?” Sergeant French said. Bennett just shrugged and said he’d walked away after that. “Got to keep trim for my show, so I passed on the snacks.” Nora gave Bennett a little shake of her head, as if she was upset that he’d said anything.
Before Sergeant French could ask any more questions, Jeen asked for details about what had happened. She pursed her lips and gave me a disparaging look. “I don’t think saying she died is enough. We want to know how she died.”
I started to explain that Dinah, Commander, and I had found her on the beach and that we’d called the paramedics, but Jym interrupted me.
“I think what my wife was asking was what happened to her. Was it foul play?”
Sergeant French took over the floor and put up his hand in a reassuring gesture. “From what the ER doctor said, it looks like Ms. Landers had a severe allergic reaction to something in the s’mores, so there’s no reason for you people to worry about being in danger.”
Commander Blaine popped out of his chair. “There was nothing wrong with the s’mores,” he protested.
Sergeant French kept an even tone. “I’m not saying there was. We’re investigating her death as being from natural causes. Did any of you happen to go to the beach with Ms. Landers?”
There was a hum of conversation and a lot of head shakes.
Miss Lavender Pants raised her hand and jumped up. “If I were you, I wouldn’t rush and be so sure it was natural causes.” Her tightly curled brown hair bobbled as she swiveled and pointed directly at Adele. “She threatened the vic.” When Miss Lavender Pants got weird looks for her word choice, she put her hand on her hip. “All right, I watch
Now all heads turned toward Adele, whose eyes bugged out as she stood up. “Are you crazy? I didn’t kill Izabelle. I didn’t even threaten her. What I said was something like it wasn’t over, and maybe I said something about her not getting away with it. But that didn’t mean I intended to kill her. I meant I wasn’t going to give in just because she denied stealing my work,” Adele said. Her demeanor changed slightly. Obviously she didn’t like being accused of killing someone, but she liked having everyone’s attention. She began to address the group. “You can understand why I’d be angry. She used my work to figure out the stitch I created, and then added on to it and had the nerve to wear it.”
It was obvious Adele wasn’t going to let up, so Sheila and I got on either side of her and acted as a human hook to get her away from the table. “Why are you dragging me out? She’s the one who started it.” Adele pointed an accusing finger at Miss Lavender Pants, who gasped.
“You heard her. Now she’s threatening me.”
I noticed Sergeant French was following us out. “Ms. Abrams, I’d like to talk to you.”
I felt Adele grab my arm with such force I knew she was leaving marks.
