Murder at the Book Group (4 page)

Now Carlene paused and looked thoughtful, as if she was trying to figure out what she did mean. Finally, she settled on a weak “It's hard to explain” and made no attempt to do so.

“I'm sure your story will be great, Carlene,” I assured her. “Are you keeping the characters from your first two books?”

“Yes, Minerva Mazarek and her dysfunctional family.” In
Murder à la Isabel,
a man had been crushed to death in Isabel, the hurricane that had devastated Richmond in the fall of 2003, when a tree crashed through his bedroom wall. The relatives suspected he'd been murdered before the crash and hired private investigator Minerva Mazarek to unearth the truth.

“Okay, that's enough about me.” Carlene grabbed another apple slice. “Should I make another pot of decaf?” A couple of acceptances enabled Carlene to successfully escape into the kitchen and dispense ice from the gizmo in the refrigerator door into her tea mug. Then the phone rang and she disappeared from view to answer it. A second later she closed the pocket door.

Annabel now turned to Helen. “Helen, what did you decide about designing a website for Sam?” After taking a number of courses at a local community college, Helen had become a freelance Web designer and from all accounts did well, rapidly gaining a reputation in the area. In fact she designed Carlene's author site for her class project.

Sarah pulled on my sleeve like a little kid, eager to resume our discussion about nonprofits. I tried to recall the name of someone I knew who volunteered for the one in question, but found the bombardment of conversational fragments around me—Cuban food, jewelry, websites, Richmond Symphony—distracting. I spotted Linda chatting with Kat and Art. Like me, Kat didn't brook discussion of medical procedures, so I guessed Linda had to curtail her doctor-related tales. Apparently that was too much for her as she soon grabbed her jacket and purse, waved, said, “Nice to meet you all,” and left. I noticed she made no effort to look for Carlene—likely she felt hurt after being ignored by our hostess.

The rising decibel level in the dining room suddenly shifted to the living room, as everyone moved in there to sit. “People have way too many names,” Sarah cried. What was she talking about? I must have looked puzzled, because she explained, “Here I'm trying to process all these employer-matching contributions from the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk. John Smith makes a donation but he submits it to his company as Albert Smith. And he's just one of many. You expect women to change their names, at least their last names. I never did, mind you. But everyone these days goes by multiple first and last names, interchanging middle names. If they want their companies to match their donations, use consistent names. That's all I ask.”

Annabel glanced at her watch and exclaimed, “Goodness, it's ten o'clock,” and got up to leave. Looking around, she asked, “Where's Carlene?” When I said I thought she got a phone call, Annabel looked uncertain, then shrugged. “Well, I have to get my jacket.” She tried to open the pocket door from the dining room to the kitchen, the one Carlene had closed earlier. But it stuck and Annabel had to jiggle it to get it open a crack.

Seeing the last brownie in the dining room—someone said they were pumpkin brownies—I looked at Sarah and said, “Want to split it?” At her eager yes, I started to ask, “Do you know who brought—” A shriek sent the group rushing en masse to the family room, this time through the door from the hall to the kitchen that Carlene had closed as well. We ran past Annabel, who stood at the top of the steps, still shrieking.

Carlene had taken her tea to the family room to talk on the phone. Now she sat slumped in her chair, hand draped over the arm. Perspiration and a deep flush covered her face, a bluish froth at her mouth. The mug lay upended on the floor, the tea soaking into the carpet. Kat checked Carlene's pulse, setting off a cacophonous bangle-on-bangle tinkling that cemented my hatred of those danged bracelets from that moment on. A disembodied male voice yelled from the cordless phone on the floor next to the chair.

“Someone call 911,” I ordered, my voice dry and raspy. Kat shook her head, looking grim, saying there was no pulse. I covered Carlene with an afghan that Helen handed me. Or was it Sarah? It seemed like everyone was everywhere. An almond odor hung on the air. Either it was the tea or—cyanide? Did that mean I had the gift? I spotted a folded sheet of paper on the floor behind the chair. Even in the stress of the moment I remembered one warning drilled into me by the crime novels I'd read and that was not to contaminate the scene. I didn't know if it was a crime scene but it didn't hurt to exercise caution. The dim light did not lend itself to reading so I turned on a tabletop lamp with a tissue I found in my jeans pocket. Then I knelt on the floor and, using the same tissue, unfolded the note, and read.

Soon the place teemed with paramedics and police. In the ensuing pandemonium, I think I remember stricken faces, mouths making “O”s of horror, hands making signs of the cross . . . and the hope and prayer I felt sure we all shared that we would wake up and find this to be the nightmare to end all nightmares.

And then realizing that we
would
wake up. Unlike Carlene, for whom there was no awakening. Ever.

“I CAN'T BELIEVE IT
was cyanide.” Lucy Hooper shook her head in bewilderment. “Cyanide poisonings don't happen in the real world, Hazel. Only in Agatha Christie's world.”

I wiped my eyes, blew my nose, and regarded Lucy. “I wish that was true. Then last night would be . . . not true.”

Lucy worked away on her latest knitting project, likely an afghan involving varying shades of teal. She asked, “Do you want to keep talking about this, Hazel? Maybe you should get some sleep. After the trauma you've been through—”

“I'm fine,” I interrupted. “Well, not fine, but I'd rather talk about it. Talking beats thinking.” Lucy had been waiting up for me when I'd returned home at 11 p.m. the night before. Beyond a little babbling, I'd been too tired to debrief her on the dramatic events of the evening. Sleep had proved fitful and now, at nine, I felt worse for the effort. We sat in our morning room with Daisy and Shammy, our feline companions. A basket of muffins sat on the wicker table in front of me, but so far I'd only managed a few sips of coffee.

I blew my nose again and added the tissue to the impressive pile by my side. Lucy had a similar but smaller pile next to her. She rarely attended book group, but knew Carlene. If asked if she'd liked her, her honest response would echo that of the other members: “She's all right.” The shock and drama of Carlene's death explained our tears, not any real affection for her.

Lucy said, “I bet Annabel's in a state, finding her the way she did. Annabel may write scenes like that, but writing's a far cry from the real thing.” After a pause, she said, “Tell me about your interview with the police. You didn't say much about that last night.”

“There's not much to tell. It was pretty much like it is in books. They searched our purses and pockets. There were two detectives—one was a cute young guy who looked like he was still in high school. He herded us into the living room and made sure we didn't talk to each other. The other was this stern-faced woman, Detective Garcia, who interviewed us individually upstairs in Carlene's den. She asked for our contact information, what we ate and drank, who brought what. I had no idea who brought the refreshments, so I wasn't much help there.”

“What were the refreshments?”

“Oh . . .” I racked my brain for a minute and came up with, “Apples. And, um, goat cheese. And there was something else.” I snapped my fingers in triumph. “Pumpkin brownies.”

“Okay, so what else did the detective ask?”

“She wanted our accounts of the evening, if anything unusual happened. Since I talked to Carlene the most, I imagine that I had the most to say. Not that anything I said was illuminating. What else?” I looked heavenward as I dredged up recollections. “They issued the usual directive not to leave town without letting them know and let us go.”

“So it sounds like the police don't believe it was suicide.”

“I don't know what they believe, but I'm sure they have to consider all possibilities.”

“Well, it's hard to believe that Carlene committed suicide. And the note said, ‘I can't do it anymore'?”

I nodded. “Whatever ‘it' is. Was, rather.” I thought back to the folded sheet of paper I'd found behind Carlene's chair. I read it in disbelief and pointed it out to the police when they arrived with the paramedics. The rest of it went, ‘I'm sorry, but it's best this way. May God forgive me.' ”

“I wonder why she needed forgiveness. To commit suicide it must have been pretty serious.”

“Maybe it had something to do with the huge mistake she brought up. I can't begin to imagine what that was all about. But suicide doesn't make sense. If I felt suicidal, I'd be too despondent to get myself all worked up over bad writing, like Carlene did.” I sipped from my mug. “And with her being so private, and so vain, I can't see her killing herself in a group setting. I see her arranging herself in an attractive pose in her perfectly decorated bedroom, hair fanned out on the pillow, makeup flawless. She'd be found with an empty container of sleeping pills at her side. Very ladylike and pretty. Like the Lilly Bart character in
The House of Mirth.
However . . .” I paused again, trying to marshal the thoughts churning around in my sleep-deprived and traumatized brain. “We're talking about Carlene here. The mysterious, inscrutable Carlene. All bets are off if we try to guess what she was thinking.”

I shifted focus. “And Evan—I'm just sick thinking about him. I wonder how he's taking this. Despite the separation and his hitting on me, I'm sure he still had feelings for Carlene.”

“Can you call him?”

“How? I doubt that he's staying at the house. And I don't have his cell number or even an e-mail address.”

Lucy narrowed her pewter eyes. “That discussion about cyanide is really bizarre. Carlene brings up the subject of cyanide right before she plans to ingest it? It's macabre. And it requires a pretty black sense of humor. And she never struck me as having much of a sense of humor, black or otherwise.”

“True, but like I said, it's useless to try to guess her character and state of mind when we're clueless about either. Of course, cyanide was in that book she was so up in arms about, so her bringing up the subject isn't that weird.”

“We need to get a copy of that book—it might provide a clue. What was the title?—
Murder in the Keys
?” Lucy asked and answered her own question.

“And another thing . . .” I told Lucy about Carlene and Georgia's Costa Rica plans and how we had arranged a coffee date with Georgia so they could get travel tips from me. I slapped my forehead. “Oh, no! I forgot all about Georgia. I hope Kat or Evan called her, but somehow I doubt it. I'll call her. In a few minutes,” I said, procrastinating. “It's probably not in the paper yet. Too soon.”

“Probably not,” Lucy agreed, looking pensive. “The case against suicide is pretty strong. Plus Carlene was on a roll with her writing. But if we don't buy the suicide theory, we have to consider the alternative . . . that someone killed her and planted the note. You said it was handwritten—did it look like her writing?”

I thought. “I'm not sure I ever saw her handwriting. We always e-mailed.”

“Well, Hazel, I hate to say it, but this points to someone in the book group—one of you. Of course, it could have been an accident . . .”

For an instant, I felt hopeful. An accident didn't implicate anyone in the group. But I couldn't hold on to that hope. “Accident? Lucy, are you serious? How does cyanide accidentally end up in someone's tea?”

Not having an answer, Lucy shrugged. “You said you smelled bitter almonds, right?” When I nodded she went on. “I wonder who passed on the almond-smelling gene. Since our mothers are sisters, I wonder if I have it or if it's from your dad's side.”

“Hopefully you'll never have to find out.”

“What do bitter almonds smell like?”

“Like—I don't know—almonds. But somehow different.
Bitter
.”

“What did Detective Garcia say when you told her about the almond smell?”

“Nothing. But as reactionless as she was I did catch a hint of amusement when I mentioned the smell.”

“Maybe she suspected you'd read one too many Agatha Christies—or that conversation you all had earlier made you suggestible.”

“I wouldn't doubt it.” I finished my coffee and put the mug on the table beside me.

“So—since Carlene had that tea, and likely no one else did, I guess we can assume the cyanide was in that.” Lucy attended book group often enough to know about Carlene's infamous teas.

“It could be that the tea smelled like almonds. I'm sure it was bitter enough. We'll just have to wait for the pathology folks to do their testing.”

For a couple of minutes, we sat silent, Lucy's needles clicking in rhythm. Daisy jumped into my lap. Then Lucy said, “Back to the suicide question, let's not forget about the separation—she could have felt despondent over that. What about her nervousness last night? Did that have to do with the separation or something else entirely? And her ranting about that book? And this Linda showing up? Did you mention Linda when you talked to Detective Garcia?”

“Oh, didn't I say that?” When Lucy shook her head I said, “Yes, I told her about Linda.” Daisy snuggled close to me and I petted her as I considered Lucy's questions about Carlene. “She was nervous, out of sorts, unlike her usual poised self. Linda could well explain her nervousness to
some
extent. But it's a huge leap from nervousness to suicide.” I ran my hands through my hair as I thought some more. “It'll take more than a note, something a five-year-old could produce, to convince me otherwise.”