Murder Mansion Read online

  The server scribbled down the order and turned without a comment. Daniel watched her go with a perplexed expression. “She must not be feeling good, or she’s still asleep.”

  Was he still stuck on why he didn’t get his usual response? Seriously. “Dead man in my upstairs room, remember?”

  He shook his head vigorously, trying to rid himself of his funk. “Of course, I remember. It was impossible to overlook the police cars and the medics wheeling out a body bag.”

  “Wish you would have got there earlier.”

  “Me, too.” He covered her hand with his warm one. “It must have been hard for you seeing the body.”

  She kept her hand under his, which reminded her of their connection. Often as the older child, she thought of her brother as a guest, an interloper, not part of who she was. Her role was to look out for him, not terrorize him. She managed a few practical jokes, but that was the extent of it, especially when all he did in return was idolize her. Geesh, no wonder people liked him.

  “The body wasn’t the problem. I see dead bodies all the time.” The mother wrestling her toddler gave her a startled look that had her amending her statement. “I mean, occasionally people don’t survive the surgery. A few stroke out in recovery.” She was sure that didn’t sound like a stellar endorsement for the hospital.

  Chair legs screeching and childish laughter heralded the departure of the nearby family. One child escaped his parents and ran around their table screaming in the process. The curly-headed boy smiled as he lapped their table. Cute, probably another Daniel, who’d discovered the power of good bone structure and great hair.

  The mother, with one child planted on her hip, managed to snag the speedy youngster about the same time Donna replied. “It’s not the dead body that’s the issue. It’s the location of it.”

  A small gasp drew their attention to the mother who held the toddler against her body with wide eyes as if she and her brother would turn into brain-hungry zombies. Daniel, always faster on people skills, remarked, “She’s a mystery writer.”

  “Oh.” The woman’s arm, banding her son against her lower body, relaxed as the hunted look left her eyes, replaced by interest. “What have you written? Maybe I’ve read something of yours. I’m a big mystery fan.”

  Yeah brother, what have I written? Daniel recovered well, never letting his distress show even after caught in an out-and-out lie. “Oh, nothing’s published yet. Still, I’m sure an agent will pick up her latest book.”

  “Oh.” The minor excitement at meeting an author fizzled out of the young mother as quickly as air escaped an untied balloon. Her husband called, giving her the excuse to leave without any more conversation.

  Donna watched the little family leave and head for a minivan. She’d be willing to bet it had a stick family on the back window complete with a dog or cat. “Couldn’t you have made me a successful author?”

  The server returned with two thick white stoneware cups and an insulated coffee carafe. She placed them on the table without pouring as she headed off toward an arm-waving patron.

  Daniel angled his head in the direction of the server. “I love it when a waitress fusses over me.”

  “Yeah, you probably do, but I’m more concerned about the dead man in my inn.” It was hard to solve issues if you couldn’t stay on topic. She picked up the coffee pot and filled both cups. Sweetener packets had been laid on the table, but no cream. A saucer of creamer pods sat on the table the family had abandoned. Using a bent index finger, she pointed without speaking. Daniel retrieved them, proving their connection.

  Daniel stirred the cream into his coffee. “Did you get a good look at the man?”

  “I did.” The man’s pale face transposed over her brother’s, making her shudder. “He was face down, which made me think he might be sleeping off a drunk. When I couldn’t shake him awake, I ended up rolling him over. Even attempted CPR. Yeah, I got a good look at him.” The stranger’s face faded, leaving behind her brother’s contemplative one as he sipped coffee.

  “Was it anyone you recognized?”

  He sounded like the police. “Of course, it wasn’t anyone I knew. I could have ID’ed the man if I knew him. No one I knew. Just as well, too. If I had known him, then I’d have a possible motive.”

  Her brother glanced over her shoulder, causing her to turn as the server arrived with their breakfast. Daniel’s plate landed with a clatter. Luckily, the eggs had congealed enough not to slide off the plate. Her plate received equally rough treatment along with the added benefit of a glare for each additional side dish. Bowl of grits, stare, pancakes, even more put out and the bottle of hot sauce, which came with an I hope you choke on it look.

  No stranger to snarky attitudes, Donna smiled sweetly. “It all looks so good. Thank you so much for your excellent service. It was a delight being served by you.”

  The waitress slowly backed away, picked up her round tray and headed for the kitchen. She threw a backward glance as she went.

  “Donna, that was mean. You messed with her head.”

  “Yep,” She stared at her hash browns, then the table. “No ketchup.”

  Daniel reached over to the other table and retrieved a bottle. “Doubt that the server will come back now. She’ll probably have someone else bring us our bills.”

  “I wasn’t scary.” She chewed on the mouthful of sausage, savoring the spicy pork patty since she had lost the conversational thread once she started eating. Fixing, eating and even analyzing food numbered among her favorite activities. Lucky for her a fast metabolism and being on her feet all day counteracted her hearty appetite. Although lately, she’d noticed a tightness in her uniforms that hadn’t existed previously.

  “Un-huh.” Her brother took a bite of his eggs before continuing. “Even though you were smiling, you had that don’t mess with me look in your eyes. The one that lets people know you’ll rip their arms off if they cross you.”

  She gave the ketchup bottle a vigorous shake without any result. “I think you got me a dud bottle.” The continual shaking didn’t help.

  “Use your knife.” Her brother waved his knife. Did he think she couldn’t figure out what a knife was?

  Her hand grasped the knife similar to a chimpanzee in some nature video about apes using tools. The knife served as tool, but not in the usual fashion. After several scrapes against the glass, ketchup trickled out in red splotches. The bottle exhaled, spitting out a bit with each breath. She looked at the red dots coating her potatoes when a realization occurred with such explosive clarity that it resulted in her volume increasing. “No blood.”

  A couple of patrons turned their heads and Daniel kicked her under the table. “Lower your voice.”

  A spark of anger flared. She had a strong desire to tell Daniel what he could do with his foot and advice. She tamped it down once she realized a diner was not the place to shout her murder observations. In a sotto voice, she leaned across the table. “There was no blood. Nothing to indicate homicide, but they still put it down as a homicide. The body was still warm when I touched it.”

  The fork dropped from her brother’s hand. “I lost my appetite.”

  She hadn’t. Picking up the syrup dispenser the server actually brought, she doused her hotcakes. Something was missing. Apparently, the medics had come in and noticed it was a murder immediately. That could just be the blood leaving his skin. “Poisoning.”

  Their server, who was almost to their table, stopped and headed back to the kitchen. Daniel picked up the coffee pot and swished it, demonstrating its almost empty state. “I think you scared the server away again. I could do with more coffee.”

  “Me too.” She took the coffee pot from her brother and held it in the air as she counted under her breath. An older server showed up with a fresh pot when she’d hit thirty-one, placed it on the table and scurried away.

  “Nifty trick. Got service without saying a word.” He reached for the new pot, refreshed his cup, then hers.

  The stenc
h of burnt toast drifted on the air, causing her to flip over her toast. Nope, not burned. Someone else was the unlucky one for a change. Just as well, she didn’t feel like dealing with Miss Sullen right now. Her mother probably owned the place and rousted the teen out of bed when short a server.

  “It’s attitude. People give you what you expect to get. You are the absolute king of this method.” Did he even realize he got different treatment or did he just assume everyone was treated the same?

  “Okay. I agree.” He waved his bare fork for emphasis. “I usually get good service, but not today. Can you explain that?”

  “Nothing is a hundred percent. Trust me. I didn’t expect a dead man in my house, but I got one anyhow. Not sure how long that will keep us out of the house or even if I’m a suspect.” Her fork cut into fluffy pancakes as her brother choked on coffee when she mentioned being a suspect. She knew he would. Predictable.

  “You. A suspect!”

  “Technically, yes.” The mix of buckwheat and maple syrup satisfied her need for comfort food. She chewed slowly and swallowed before answering. Her mother may have despaired of teaching her social skills, but table manners she got. It didn’t stop her from talking about medical procedures while dining, but she kept her mouth shut while chewing, which was more than some people.

  “Anyone who is at a crime scene must be investigated. I don’t think Taber believes I’m a killer. I called, volunteered too much information, even let him take my handheld recorder. Then there’s the fact I didn’t know the man, tried to save him with CPR. It doesn’t sound very killer like.”

  “Hmm.” Her brother nodded as he chewed, demonstrating similar good manners. Most people didn’t mind his construction talk while chowing down either. “You could be an incredibly smart criminal if doing all those things would divert someone. Still.” His eyes narrowed as he paused. “I think you’re right about Taber not taking you seriously as a suspect, but not for the listed reasons.”

  “Okay. Why?” This should be interesting. She moved the empty pancake plate to the center of the table while eyeing the grits and eggs. Neither one tasted that good while cold.

  “Taber’s a seasoned veteran cop. Couldn’t get where he is without experience. He has an instinct about when someone is telling the truth. He also knows when someone is holding something back. He felt that with you.”

  “All good. It makes sense.” She had a similar instinct in knowing when people were lying to her, especially when she confronted the spouse of a patient who denied sleeping beside her husband and the impression of her body remained on the sheets. Despite it being against hospital policy, she didn’t make a big deal out of it. The sense of the familiar calmed the patient. Occasionally, she felt a twinge, especially with an older couple when one of them confessed they’d never spent a night apart since they were married.

  “Thank goodness, you didn’t bring up any of that nonsense about Taber wanting me.”

  “He does.” Daniel shoveled in a mouthful of hash browns as his eyes twinkled at her.

  She shook her head, unwilling to entertain the topic. “It couldn’t be poisoning. I thought it was at first, but there was no vomit near the body.”

  “Donna.” Daniel’s forehead furrowed with his complaint. “Usually I can take your medical small talk, but I am eating here.”

  “Me too. I’m trying to figure this out. The sooner the killer is caught, the sooner the suspicious shadow hanging over my inn disappears.” At least that was how she hoped it would work. There’d still be people in the neighborhood willing to rehash it, but they weren’t her future customers.

  The ping from the fork hitting the platter drew her attention. Her brother regarded her with a resigned expression and folded arms. “Go ahead. Tell me why it couldn’t be poisoning. I’m done eating anyhow.”

  “I bent over him to administer CPR. As you may know, it’s CPR only as opposed to mouth to mouth when you’re unaware of what caused the person to be unconscious.”

  “No, I wasn’t aware.” He circled his hand for her to continue.

  “As I leaned over him, there was no smell of poison.” Her brother’s eyebrows shot up. She continued before he could ask. “Arsenic smells rather like garlic. Cyanide has the aroma of bitter almonds. Diethyl glycol smells like maple syrup. Even though it’s in everything from cough syrup to toothpaste, enough of it can kill you.”

  “He didn’t smell like any of these?”

  “No.” Her eyes rolled upward as she gathered her impressions from the unknown stranger. No splotching on the face or sallowness that would be indicative of various poisons. “At first, I thought he was some homeless guy sleeping off a drunk, but then I noticed the quality of his clothes, the expensive haircut, the Rolex. When I rolled him over, I caught the scent of a high-end cologne, a complex one with notes of musk and citrus in it. At the time, I thought he was the type I wanted to visit my inn, preferably while not inebriated. I didn’t know he was dead then. When I put my head near his face to see if he was breathing, he smelt fresh like mouthwash or toothpaste, not like alcohol at all. Instead of being a drunk, he was more like a man on his way to a secret tryst. Hadn’t thought about it before, but what if he were there to meet someone, a romantic rendezvous?”

  Her brother’s lips turned down, but his gaze went past her shoulder as he spoke. “If it were romantic, then it ended badly. Makes you wonder why the secret meeting place? Better yet, how did he get in?”

  How did he get in? With everything going on, she hadn’t even considered this. When she opened the locked back door this morning, nothing seemed amiss. He could have come through the side or front door. Before she could relay this information, a red-faced, middle-aged woman appeared at their table. The hairnet along with the oversized apron indicated she might be the cook, or owner, or possibly both. The woman pursed her lips, fisted her hands on her hips, before giving them each a baleful glare.

  “I don’t appreciate all this talk about poisoning and dead bodies in my restaurant.”

  Donna rather admired the show of indignation. Couldn’t have done better herself. Her brother smiled up at the woman, expecting the woman to soften toward him. She didn’t. He hurried to explain, “We weren’t talking about you personally poisoning people.”

  The woman’s lips grew into an even tighter line that Donna would have sworn five seconds ago wasn’t possible. Waving a chipped-nail index finger in Daniel’s face, she announced with venom dripping from her words, “I know your type, pretty boy. Think a smile and a wink will get you out of trouble. Not here.”

  The woman’s face reddened as she held a rigid arm in the direction of the door rather like the angel with the flaming sword barring the entrance to Eden. Yep, not hard to read that message.

  Donna unhooked her purse from the back of the chair and favored the grits with a longing look before she stood. Normally, she’d put up a fuss, but too much had happened already. Daniel got up slower, probably not sure what had happened. Definitely his first ejection from anywhere, especially by a woman, not that Donna was an expert on getting the bum’s rush, but she had more of a tendency to rile people up. Her brother tossed a twenty on the table, which is more than she would have done since they hadn’t finished their meal.

  They both walked out without comment under the silent scrutiny of the handful of diners who remained. No doubt, they’d burst into conversation as soon as the door shut. Outside in the frigid air, she winked at her brother. “First time I’ve ever been tossed out. I think I like it.”

  “I don’t.” His grumpy tone and woebegone expression made her laugh.

  “C’mon, Dano, get in my car and we can finish our conversation, which was so rudely interrupted.” Instead of answering, he went to the passenger door and waited for the unlock click before trying the door.

  Once in the car, she debated turning on the engine but decided only to fire it up when it became too cold. “I guess what I want to know is how they knew it was murder. I saw no visible signs of poison
. Most of the time they have to do a toxicology report to find that out anyhow.”

  “Do you think they may have said that to cover all the bases before they determine the cause of death?”

  Weird. “It wouldn’t make sense. Normally it would be the opposite. Not sure who the person was, but obviously he had money. Possibly someone important. Would the police call it murder if he weren’t wealthy? Homeless people tended to die from natural causes and misadventure.”

  Daniel’s phone chirped. He palmed it and read the text before replying. Donna knew who it was without asking. Sunday morning was probably the only day off he had to spend with his wife and she was hogging it all.

  “That was Maria.”

  Pretend surprise. Her hand landed on her chest as she made an O with her mouth. “Really?”

  “No wonder you never got the lead in any of the school plays. You’re a lousy actor. She wants to know when I’ll be home.”

  Reasonable question. “Nothing more you can do here. Maybe you can make it home in time for a second breakfast.”

  “Hilarious. I’m not a hobbit.”

  His hand was on the door handle as a familiar sedan pulled into the empty space between her car and Daniel’s truck. Taber unfolded himself from his car and, seeing the occupants of the car, threw a wry smile, then walked over to the driver’s side.

  Donna motored the window down. “Hello. Imagine seeing you here. How can I help you?”

  “A call came in from the owner of the diner.” He angled his head back in the direction of the building where the apron-wrapped woman stood, legs apart, arms akimbo, itching for a fight. “Suspicious characters in the parking lot. Same two she’d thrown out for making remarks about killing people, poison and frightening her customers. She was afraid they might be concocting some type of revenge, even robbery. Typically a squad car would handle it, but I was in the area and thought the description fit you.”

  Description, huh? Had the bitter server described her as a tall woman with a commanding presence? A handsome woman on the upside of fifty? “What did she say?”