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  “I suppose that would be okay, just don’t leave town,” Dave said.

  “Anybody else thinking about going home instead of staying the night here? I should mention that one of my deputies will be here until morning if that influences your decision.”

  “I think I’d feel safe here with the deputy nearby,” Sindhu said. “Besides, I don’t want to drive on these back roads in the darkness.”

  I didn’t say so, but I tended to agree with Sindhu. The thought of driving the Bentley, an expensive car that didn’t belong to me, on dark, winding roads was unsettling.

  “I think we’re safe as long as long as no one wanders off on their own and we stay inside,” Bryn added.

  This seemed to be the general consensus.

  “Fine, then. If you’d come on back, Ms. Grable,” Dave said.

  Headlights flashed across the front windows. A moment later, Deputy Ted walked through the great room and out the back door, followed by an older man I presumed to be the medical examiner.

  Ted returned, knocked, and then opened the door to the hallway and said something to Dave. In a minute, the sheriff emerged and followed Ted out the back door.

  Winette leaned toward me. “Oh, Liv, in all the confusion I didn’t get a chance to tell you. After we came back to the lodge with Miss Annabelle, one of those Sisters of the Full Moon showed up. She said she just wanted to make sure the elderly lady was all right. They didn’t mind Miss Annabelle joining in their ceremony, but after a bit they realized she seemed confused and something wasn’t quite right. The woman—her name was Astrid—said she walked a few steps outside the fire circle to grab her robe so she could escort Miss Annabelle back to wherever she was staying. But when she turned back around, Miss Annabelle had disappeared into the woods. Astrid said she drove a golf cart Tammy had left for their use up to the main lodge looking for Miss Annabelle. They told her she must be part of our group, so she came over here. This Astrid seemed like a reasonable, normal person to me, but then she was wearing clothes when I talked to her.”

  “Did Miss Annabelle remember her?” I asked.

  “She didn’t see her. Miss Maybelle had taken her sister back to the restroom to wash up. I just thanked Astrid for her concern and told her we were in the middle of dealing with a situation here.”

  “You’ll need to tell Dave about her,” I said.

  Winette nodded.

  The sheriff and deputy entered through the back porch, and Ted went into the hallway. Dave glanced at the list, then said, “Liv McKay, come with me, please.”

  I started toward the hallway, but Dave nudged my shoulder, pointing me toward the back door, and we stepped onto the screened-in back porch. We sat down in two of the four rocking chairs. I pulled a plaid blanket off a bench and wrapped it around my shoulders.

  “Hope it’s not too chilly out here,” Dave said. “Ted’s in Lucinda’s room with her, looking over the contents of her suitcase before she leaves, so you and I wouldn’t have privacy in the hallway. Since she was in such an all-fired hurry to go, I wanted to make sure she’s not hauling away evidence. She agreed to the search voluntarily, of course.”

  “Actually, it feels good to get some fresh air,” I said. “Ted might be awhile going through her stuff. She had two huge suitcases and a cosmetics bag. I know because Winette and I carried them in for her.”

  “So who do you think might have had reason to kill Morgan?” he asked, as if I keep tabs on everybody in town.

  “Are you sure it was murder and not some kind of seizure? She did have that weird look on her face.”

  “The investigator from the M.E.’s office thinks it’s foul play. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  “Dave, I honestly have no idea who killed Morgan.”

  “I’m not asking you who killed her. I’m asking you who you think might have had a motive to kill her.”

  “Well, she certainly had a reputation for running around with married men. If it’s true, I’m sure some of their wives held it against her. And I don’t think she was generally monogamous with any of her beaus, so I would think some of the men she was involved with wouldn’t like that much, either.”

  “Any wives or husbands in particular?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t know anything for a certainty, just gossip.”

  “I understand that. But I’m not grafted onto the grapevine the way you are. Now dish me some dirt so I can start digging.”

  “Oh, okay. There’s gossip about Billy Tucker and Morgan—and I tend to believe it. They seemed to be carefully avoiding eye contact during supper tonight. And Nell is definitely a wife who would care about that sort of thing.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “There’s plenty of gossip about Morgan and Pierce Davenport.”

  “Bryn Davenport’s husband?”

  “Yes. I think it might be true because it’s a persistent rumor going back at least a couple of years—not just your flavor-of-the-week gossip. And Pierce has an ego as big as all outdoors, so I have no difficulty seeing him as easy prey to her attentions.”

  “Well, that’s two of the women from our cast of suspects. Give me a rundown on the others.”

  “I have heard a remark or two about Sindhu’s husband, Ravi. But I’m not sure I buy it. He seems like a sensible man, and completely devoted to his wife and daughter.”

  “But he does have quite a few beds at his disposal,” Dave interjected.

  “He’d be taking a big chance having a tryst at the hotel with his wife on the premises. Not to mention, one of the employees would be bound to notice.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “I haven’t heard any rumors about Jasmine’s boyfriend, Dylan, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

  “I don’t know anything about the men in Lucinda’s life, but presumably that would be a long-distance commute for Morgan. The Wythe sisters don’t have husbands, and neither does Winette for that matter.”

  “That just leaves you,” Dave said, his gaze focused on me like a laser beam.

  “If anyone thinks Larry Joe was fooling around with Morgan, they haven’t said so to me. And if I believed for a minute he’d been knocking knees with Morgan, you’d be arresting me for Larry Joe’s murder—not hers.”

  “So you’re definitely the kind of wife who would care about that sort of thing.”

  “Damn skippy,” I said, my face feeling hot despite the night air.

  “So the medical examiner must be thinking poison,” I said, a lightbulb suddenly going on in my head. “I’ve read mysteries where the killer used a poison that caused some kind of death smile.”

  “Strychnine,” Dave said. “Only problem with that theory is that Morgan didn’t seem to show any other symptoms of strychnine poisoning in the time preceding her death. At least according to the witness statements I’ve taken so far. Did you notice Morgan displaying any symptoms, like muscle spasms or difficulty breathing?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “After the autopsy and toxicology results, we should know if it was poison, and what kind, how it was ingested, and about how long before her death the poison was administered. Until then, we’ve gathered food and drink samples. Unfortunately, the caterers had already washed up all the glasses from cocktail hour by the time we arrived, and all but three of the bowls from dinner. We’ll also go over all the video footage from the cemetery. Do you know if anyone was alone with Morgan during the evening?”

  “Well, during cocktails I think she was in the great room most of the time—not that I was monitoring her. She did go into that little hallway at least once that I noticed, so I guess she could have been alone with Lucinda. And Morgan went outside to check on dinner. I don’t know if she was alone with Billy then or not.”

  “What about after Miss Annabelle went missing? That kind of chaos could have provided cover for someone who was up to no good, including murder.”

  “You can’t seriously think Miss Annabelle was involved.”

&n
bsp; “No, but someone could have lured her into the woods and left her there, knowing the rest of you would start a search for her. Tell me what you remember about who went where after you realized Miss Annabelle was gone,” Dave said.

  “Let me see. Winette and I went down to the lake. Nell and Bryn went into the woods in the opposite direction. I remember Sindhu was trying to comfort Miss Maybelle, so I assumed she walked back with her to the lodge. We got back to the cemetery about the same time as Nell and Bryn, and Miss Annabelle stumbled out of the woods just after that. Lucinda and her crew were still there, but Jasmine and Morgan were gone. I don’t know if they walked back toward the lodge together or not,” I said.

  Dave looked at the list of names registered for the retreat and asked, “What about Naomi Mawbry? You haven’t mentioned her, and I don’t remember seeing her in the lodge.”

  “She didn’t make it tonight,” I said. “Her sister passed away this afternoon.”

  Dave scribbled something on his notepad.

  “Okay, so Jasmine may have been the last one to see Morgan alive,” Dave said, pursing his lips and squinting his eyes as if he were mulling something over.

  “And she certainly would have knowledge of plants—and poisons,” I suggested.

  Dave asked me to keep any mention of poison under wraps for the time being. We went back inside the lodge. Miss Annabelle lay back on the sofa, snoring, and Miss Maybelle was asleep with her head on her sister’s shoulder. An antlered deer head trophy looked down on them from its lofty position on the log wall.

  Dave suggested we put the elderly sisters to bed and then asked Winette to join him on the porch.

  Nell helped me get them to bed. I was keeping my fingers crossed that Miss Annabelle would sleep through the night—judging from the near-constant snoring, I’d say she did. On the other hand, after changing into my pajamas I don’t think I slept more than fifteen minutes at a stretch all night. Every time I started to doze, the unsettling image of Morgan’s twisted face popped into my head.

  A few minutes after five AM, I decided to go ahead and get up. My bunkmates were still asleep when I grabbed my overnight bag and slipped out, quietly closing the door behind me. After brushing my teeth and getting dressed, I headed to the kitchen, where I found Jasmine making coffee. Deputy Ted was sitting on a barstool at the counter.

  “Mornin’,” Ted said.

  “I guess it is morning, although I didn’t sleep much,” I said.

  “Me either,” Jasmine said. “I usually sleep like a rock.”

  The gurgling of the coffeemaker was music to my ears.

  “Fortunately, we had an unopened bag of coffee, since the sheriff took all the opened containers of food and drink as evidence,” Jasmine said.

  “Morgan said . . .” I paused for a moment, thinking about the deceased. “Well, someone from the doughnut shop is supposed to deliver breakfast this morning.”

  Jasmine poured coffee into three Styrofoam cups, and we each doctored our brews with packets of sugar and creamer from a basket on the counter.

  We took our cups and walked to the seating area by the fireplace, which still had a couple of dying embers flickering among the ash.

  “Ted, have you been up all night?” I asked.

  “No, I caught a few winks. Eric and I slept in shifts.”

  I was on my third cup of coffee when Winette and Sindhu emerged from the sleeping area, followed by Nell, Bryn, and Miss Maybelle. Jasmine put on a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Looks like everyone else is up,” Miss Maybelle said. “I’m going to let Sister sleep in. She probably needs it after all the excitement last night.”

  Our group perked up a bit when Renee from Dixie Donuts and More delivered doughnuts at six-fifteen.

  “Mmm, these are good and fresh,” Nell said. “I think the iced chocolate ones are my favorite.”

  Miss Annabelle tottered in, wild haired, still in her flannel pajamas. “Why are you eating without me? I’m hungry, too,” she said with a pouty look.

  “I was just letting you sleep in, Sister,” Miss Maybelle said.

  “What kind of doughnuts would you like, Miss Annabelle, glazed or jelly filled?” I asked.

  “Both.”

  “All right, then,” I said, putting two doughnuts and a napkin on a plate for her.

  “Pace yourself, Sister. I’ll get you some coffee,” Miss Maybelle said.

  After she had gobbled down most of one doughnut, Miss Annabelle brought the quiet conversations around her to a halt when she blurted out, “I had one of those crazy dreams last night, you know, where you’re naked in public. Only I had all my clothes on and these nuns were naked and dancing around a campfire.”

  We all shared a knowing smile.

  “Well, you’re just fine now,” Nell said, reaching over and squeezing Miss Annabelle’s arm. “I think we all had some crazy dreams last night.”

  * * *

  Sheriff Davidson tapped on the lodge door about ten minutes to seven. Deputy Ted walked over to let him in. After conferring quietly for a moment, Dave joined the group around the fireplace.

  “Mornin’, ladies. I hope y’all were able to get some sleep last night.”

  “Dave, do you know yet if Morgan was murdered or died of natural causes?” Sindhu asked.

  “We won’t have any answers until after the autopsy. Until then, we have to treat this as a suspicious death. Some reserve deputies will be here soon to help Eric and Ted do a daylight search of the grounds.”

  “Do you need anything else from us, or are we free to leave?” Nell said.

  “I need to get statements from Miss Maybelle and Miss Annabelle, since I didn’t talk to them last night. The rest of you are free to go—just don’t take any out-of-town trips without checking in with me first.

  “Ted, I’d like you to go over to the small lodge and talk to the ladies that Miss Annabelle ran into last night. The church group up at the main lodge is scheduled to be here through tomorrow, so I’ll interview them after I finish up here. You can join me when you’ve finished up at Sparrow Lodge,” Dave said. “Miss Maybelle, I’d like to talk to you first, then we can talk to your sister together, if that’s all right?”

  Dave and Miss Maybelle stepped into the hallway and I sat down next to Miss Annabelle.

  “Could I have another doughnut?” she asked.

  “You’ve already had two. Are you sure you want another one?”

  She nodded emphatically. “Where did Sister go?”

  “She’s talking to Dave. She’ll be back by the time you finish eating this,” I said, handing her a smaller cake doughnut. I didn’t think she needed all the sugar, but I figured I’d chance it to keep her content until Miss Maybelle returned.

  The woman with elegant manners I remembered from my childhood tucked into her breakfast with childlike abandon, leaving her chin dotted with crumbs. I gave it a quick swipe with a napkin, eliciting a smile from her.

  Dave and Miss Maybelle emerged from the hallway. I left them to join Winette in the bunkroom and pack my things. I wondered how much of the previous night’s events Miss Annabelle would remember, secretly wishing I could forget most of it.

  I found Winette wiping down the counter and sinks in the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The sheriff said it would be okay for us to clean up.”

  “I doubt Tammy and Keith are concerned about a bit of dirt in the lodge, what with a dead body and deputies combing the grounds,” I said.

  “I told Morgan I would, and I intend to keep my word,” Winette said resolutely.

  I filled the bucket from the broom closet and started mopping.

  “I think the caterers left the kitchen in good shape. I’ll just go wash the coffeemaker,” she said.

  The other women packed up and said their good-byes. Lucinda had been scheduled to talk to the group this morning, but she had taken off with her crew last night after the sheriff finished interviewing her. Although PWAD had booke
d the lodge through Sunday afternoon, none of us felt much enthusiasm for hanging around after what happened to Morgan. After tidying up to Winette’s exacting standards, we loaded the trash bags into the trunk of the Bentley. I told Winette I’d drop them in the Dumpster beside the main lodge.

  She started toward her car, then stopped and turned to me. “Liv McKay, you go home. Keep your nose out of this business and leave it to the sheriff.”

  I started to say something, but she waggled her index finger at me and added, “I mean it.”

  She needn’t have worried. I wasn’t ready to fully accept that Morgan’s death was murder, and I was too tired to think about it at the moment.

  Besides, the one time I did get involved in investigating a murder was under different circumstances. FBI suspicions had fallen on both Larry Joe and my father-in-law. I had to do something before someone near and dear to me ended up getting arrested or possibly even killed. I wasn’t pleased by Morgan’s death, but she was neither near nor dear to me.

  Chapter 7

  When I arrived home, I could hear Larry Joe banging on some pipes upstairs.

  “Honey,” I called out from the top of the stairs.

  He peeked his disheveled head out of the bathroom door.

  “I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow. What happened? Did the ghosts run you off?”

  “Kind of,” I said. “Morgan Robison is dead.”

  “Oh,” Larry Joe said, followed quickly by “What?” He stood stunned for a moment, a monkey wrench dangling from his right hand.

  “Several of us found her lying dead on the grounds behind the lodge. Dave said the medical investigator thinks she was probably poisoned. He won’t know for sure until after the autopsy.”

  “That’s rough,” Larry Joe said. “I guess there are plenty of people who won’t really miss Morgan, but still . . . Her daddy worshipped the ground she walked on.”

  “Yeah, I do feel sorry for her parents.”

  “There’s still coffee. Why don’t you come on down to the kitchen and tell me the whole story.”