The Extinguished Guest (A Lexie Starr Mystery, Book 2) (28 page)

I nodded absentmindedly. I was thinking about the footprints in the snow I'd photographed
the morning after discovering Horatio Prescott had been murdered. Crystal would have
driven her car to the inn Sunday morning, parked in the carport, walked across the
landscaping stones to the front porch, and used her own key to open the front door
of the inn. As the housekeeper, she'd been given a master set of keys and could unlock
any door at will.

I thought about her maimed foot again. She would just naturally put more pressure
on the left side of the foot than the right, causing a more profound imprint from
one side of the shoe than the other. Why hadn't I thought of it before when it had
been determined the neighbors were out of town, and the footprints were too small,
and the imprint didn't match the department-issued detectives' shoes of the officers
who'd responded to Stone's call that morning?

Crystal was in the kitchen when I went downstairs at seven
A.M.
on Monday. Neither Stone nor I had ever questioned her about what she might have
witnessed early Monday morning. Had the Rockdale detectives asked her for a statement?
I couldn't recall but didn't think they had. I think she'd been overlooked, as if
she were just a fixture in the inn and not a person with potential motives or, at
least, observations from Monday morning deserving to be explored by the investigators.
I didn't want to think for a single moment Crystal could have any kind of involvement
in the murder of Horatio Prescott, but I had to be realistic, and I had to ask her
about it whether I wanted to or not.

"Say, Crystal, just out of curiosity, did any of the detectives ask you what time
you arrived here on Monday morning?"

"No. Why do you ask?" Crystal sounded dubious.

"Just curious if the detectives ever took a statement from you on what you might have
seen or heard Monday morning after reporting for work. What time did you get here,
by the way?"

I suddenly noticed Crystal was looking at me in an odd way. There was a definite note
of defensiveness in her voice when she asked, "Just what are you getting at, Lexie?
You aren't saying you think I might have had something to do with the murder, are
you?"

I felt sick to my stomach as I watched fury creep into Crystal's expression. I had
never seen her so angry before and noticed now she looked like an entirely different
person. I wondered why I hadn't considered her a potential suspect. Whose fingerprints
had been found in the room other than the victim's, Stone's and mine? Crystal's had.
But since she was the housekeeper, no one had even questioned the presence of her
prints in the room. It was Stone and I who set the room up initially, and Sunday was
the first night the room had been used by a guest. Why would the housekeeper have
even been in the room up to that point?

Thinking back, I didn't think she'd ever had a reason to go upstairs, due to her recent
employment at the time. Crystal had only been working at the inn for a day or two
when the murder occurred. Up to the time of the murder, Crystal's services had been
confined to the first-floor rooms, primarily to the kitchen, library, and parlor.
I recalled her mentioning an interest in finding out how the suites had been decorated
the day after the murder. So how did her fingerprints come to be in Mr. Prescott's
room?

Who would have had the easiest and most frequent opportunities to slip poison into
Mr. Prescott's mixed drinks, and then into my coffee the following day? Again the
answer was Crystal. Who would have had the easiest opportunity to snatch the manuscript
from Prescott's room and place it in Otto's suitcase? The obvious answer again, in
my opinion, was Crystal. She could have hidden it in the kitchen cabinet and never
even taken it to Otto's room. And why had she become so anxious and upset when I brought
up the fact she hadn't been asked for a statement?

The investigators had not done a gunshot residue test on her, either. She'd maintained
a low profile in the kitchen and dining room the day the investigators were at the
inn testing the guests' hands for signs of gunpowder residue. If I remembered right,
she had even had to make a mad dash to the market at about that time. I glanced at
her now and saw a vacant expression—the look of someone who'd lost his soul and was
acting out of desperation. I had to tread lightly.

"No, of course I don't think you had anything to do with the murder, Crystal. Don't
be silly. I was just wondering why you were overlooked as a potential witness, considering
you were up and about earlier than about anyone else that morning. Seems to me you
could very possibly have seen or heard more than any other person in the inn, aside
from the killer."

"Couldn't tell you," Crystal said, with an uncharacteristic snippiness to her voice.
"No one asked me if I saw or heard anything, but I didn't, so I didn't feel like I
had any information to share with anyone."

Her attitude gave me the urge to respond in kind, which was beyond doubt the stupidest
thing I could have done at that point. "Guess you didn't really mind the fact you
were being allowed to fly beneath the radar, so to speak. I'm sure you also don't
mind that the county homicide team is stopping by the inn this afternoon and planning
to get a statement from you and perform a gunshot residue test on you while they're
here to test Stone and me. They said it's just a formality to test everyone who was
present in the inn when the murder occurred. They'd suddenly realized the three of
us had been overlooked and thought there might still be some residual GSR on our hands
if we were involved in the shooting, even though they didn't anticipate that to be
an issue."

There was absolute evil in Crystal's eyes now. I was sure she was trying to evaluate
the truthfulness of my comments. She might have sensed I was just throwing out comments
to see how she'd react to them. Crystal could have figured out by now I was putting
two and two together and coming up with a "crystal" clear conclusion.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. I realized I was in a dangerous position.
Crystal turned to me with an expression I'd never seen on her face before. Her lips
were curled into a sneer, and she said, "Think you're pretty smart, don't you, Ms.
Starr? Were you thinking you just might trick me into an admission?"

"Well, no, of course not, don't be silly—"

"Okay, fine, I'll admit it, Lexie. I killed the greedy son-of-a-bitch—"

"Oh, my God."

"—and as much as I hate it," Crystal continued, "now I'm going to have to kill you,
too. I feel badly about it because I really liked you. But, unfortunately, you've
given me no choice. For your sake, I truly wish the tansy oil had been effective.
It'd have been a lot less messy." Crystal's chest heaved with a heavy sigh. The look
on her face indicated that having to kill me too was really inconveniencing her.

"Just out of curiosity, where'd you get the tansy oil, Crystal?" I asked softly. Even
facing probably death, my curiosity could not help but be piqued.

"From the Dunsten Drug Store in St. Joseph, where I was working when I applied for
this job," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Now I remembered where I'd seen the name Dunsten Drug Store before. It was on Crystal's
resume when she applied for the housekeeper/cook position here at Alexandria Inn.

"But according to the homicide team, there's no record of any tansy oil sales at the
store for the last several months."

"No, there wouldn't be any record of a sale. I stole the oil, of course," Crystal
said with another sneer. "And who do you think kept the records there? I did. So I
altered the inventory list to reflect the decreased amount of tansy oil the store
had on hand. I take it no one has ever told you the story about how curiosity killed
the cat?"

She reached into the pocket of her apron and whipped out a small derringer handgun.
A .32-caliber Derringer, no doubt, I thought with a start. My heart began to hammer
inside my chest. Despite the likelihood I was about to be shot, I found it hard to
believe Crystal could've already taken another person's life and was now threatening
to take mine. Who would've ever imagined this sweet young woman could be a cold-blooded
killer? Without thinking, I expressed my surprise at the change in her personality.
She suddenly seemed like a person I'd never met before.

"Well, I wasn't the president of the drama club for nothing," she said with sarcasm.

I knew the paring knife I held in my hand was not going to save me. I tossed it down
on the kitchen table so Crystal would not view it as a threat. I was going to have
to rely on my wits—and maybe some old-fashioned good fortune—to get out of this situation
alive.

The house was full of people, and yet it was unlikely another soul was on this end
of the dwelling. The house was so large and the walls so thick, even a scream could
conceivably go unnoticed. It was worth a try, however.

"Open your mouth to scream, and I'll be forced to shoot," Crystal cautioned, as if
she'd read my mind. "I have a silencer on this gun, you know. I can be miles away
from here before anyone even realizes you're dead."

Yes, I did know she had a silencer, and I believed she'd shoot if I even looked like
I might attempt a scream. She had a desperate look on her face, convincing me she'd
do whatever she had to do in a last-ditch effort to avoid being apprehended. She had
nothing to lose at this point. I clamped my lips together tightly. If nothing else,
it gave me a little confidence to realize Crystal was stalling. She could've shot
me and been gone already.

Over her shoulder I saw a whiff of smoke escape from the oven. I heard hissing sounds
as drops of the frozen lemonade concentrate dripped from one of the canisters and
landed on the scalding hot surface below. Crystal was so tense she didn't appear to
notice the smoke or hissing sounds coming from the oven. I started to comment on the
fact, but stopped myself just in time. Due to the adrenaline pumping through her veins,
Crystal was oblivious to what was happening in the oven behind her. I knew I might
be able to use her distracted state to my advantage. I had to come up with some kind
of stall tactic to buy myself time.

"Why did you kill Mr. Prescott, Crystal?" I asked in as calm a voice as I could manage.

"The greedy bastard destroyed my family."

"How did he destroy your family? What happened? Maybe if you turn yourself in and
explain it to the authorities, they'll show leniency toward you."

"No they won't. Don't try to con me, Ms. Starr. I may be young, but I'm not a complete
fool."

"I know you're not a fool, Crystal. Don't start being foolish now by killing me, too.
You would definitely be caught and tried and found guilty. This is Missouri, you know.
They have capital punishment in this state. Kill me too, and you'll be lucky to escape
getting the needle," I said. I was trying to reason with her. And if I scared her
into handing over her gun, that'd be all right with me. "Is there someone in on this
plot with you? Someone who pushed me down the stairs Tuesday night after you'd already
left to go home."

"No, there's no one else involved, although I think everyone who knew Prescott is
glad to see him gone."

"But then who—"

"I pushed you down the steps. I was hiding behind a cabinet in the storage room attached
to Stone's office. I waited a long time for you to come upstairs. Afterwards, I climbed
down the emergency fire escape and walked out to my car while everyone was attending
to you, lying on the steps. I wasn't really hoping to kill you, just put you out of
commission for a while. If you hadn't been so determined to see Peter Randall cleared
of the charges against him, you would've had the opportunity to see the sun come up
tomorrow. Sometimes being a goody two-shoes isn't such a great idea."

"You'd let an innocent man be charged with a murder you committed and let him be punished
for something he didn't do?" I found this more unforgivable than the actual murder.

"Yep. I would've been delighted to see Randall take the fall for Prescott's murder.
More than delighted, actually. He was my father's financial advisor at one time, too,
for a few years anyway. My father lost a lot of money on his stock tips, not once
or twice, but three separate times. As Dad grew poorer, Randall grew richer off the
commissions Dad was paying him to make the trades for him. He was nearly as greedy
and immoral as Horatio Prescott. You should have backed off and let Randall take the
fall. For one thing, you would have lived to see tomorrow."

"If you kill me too, there is no way you'll get away with it. How is it going to help
your parents if you end up in prison or worse? The attorney fees will be overwhelming,
and having you led away in shackles won't be easy on them either."

I heard the sizzling sound of more drops of lemonade hitting the bottom of the oven.
Crystal still seemed oblivious to the sound as she appeared to contemplate what I'd
just said and even seemed to consider setting the small handgun down on the table.
But then she shook her head and pointed the gun at me with a new resolve.

"They'll get over it and be happy to have achieved retribution. Now back up and get
your hands up where I can see them," she said. "Besides, I can't undo what's already
been done."

I did as she instructed and asked again, "Why did you kill him, Crystal? What did
Prescott do to you? The least you can do is explain it to me before you kill me."