Brutal Brûlée (Lexy Baker Cozy Mystery Series Book 11) Read online

  “Any-whoo,” Ida broke into everyone’s thoughts, clearly eager to get on with the investigation. “It sounds like this Karen is suspect numero uno.”

  “I wonder if Garrity knows?” Helen asked.

  “That should be easy enough to find out.” Nans tilted her chin toward the door that led to the hallway, and Lexy saw Jack and Inspector Garrity walking toward them.

  Violet dropped Houdini, who landed on the floor with a soft thud and a belligerent meow, then she opened the door for Jack and Garrity. “What is it inspector Garrity? Have you carted Karen off to jail?”

  “No.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “No reason to put her in jail.”

  Nans frowned at Garrity. “We heard she might have some questionable motives.”

  Garrity looked at Jack. “You were right. They were investigating. Do they do this all the time?”

  Jack shrugged. “Yep. I’m sorry to tell you there’s no stopping them, you might as well just join forces with them.”

  Garrity nodded slowly as he considered it. “Okay. I’ll bite. You tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Ruth, Ida and Helen exchanged a look. Each gave a slight nod to Nans, who then described their visit with Darlene and how she'd admitted that Karen had paid her to make up a story so Karen could replace her at the mansion.

  Garrity listened intently nodding his head. “Well that corroborates what she told me.”

  “So, she is the killer?” Violet sank into one of the wicker cushioned chairs, her hand fluttered around her neck. “Oh dear, I hired a killer.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Garrity said. “I said the story of her paying Darlene corroborates what Karen told me.”

  A look of confusion crossed Helen’s face. “She’s not the killer?”

  Garrity shook his head. “I don’t think so. She did pay Darlene to get this job here. But it actually wasn’t for her. It was for the management of the production company that is doing this documentary.”

  “Why would they do that?” Nans asked.

  “It seems there's a mole in the company. Someone is passing along the documentary ideas to a rival production company. Apparently, good ideas are worth a lot of money. But they don’t know who it is, so upper management hired Karen to infiltrate and see if she could ferret out the mole.”

  “And that’s why she paid off Darlene?” Violet asked.

  “Yep. The company gave Karen the money to pay Darlene, and Darlene persuaded you to hire her.”

  “Are you sure she’s not just making that up, you know, so you’ll let her go and she can make a getaway?” Ida asked.

  Garrity’s face twisted comically. “Gee, I didn’t think of that.” He paused then leveled Ida with a look. “Naturally we made a phone call and checked it out. She’s legit. But I’d appreciate it if you ladies didn’t tell anyone. It’s in our best interest to keep that secret while the investigation is on-going. If the killer thinks we suspect Karen, he might get sloppy and screw up.”

  “That’s why she was being so secretive on the phone and why she didn’t really have any relevant experience,” Lexy said.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you don’t have any other clues or suspects?” Nans asked.

  “The pill bottle was wiped clean, so there were no prints on it. We never found the extra pills. We figure the killer either disposed of them or still has them. The hot toddy was laced with cyanide.” Garrity’s eyes twinkled as he turned to Nans. “You made the hot toddy so, you might be my next suspect.”

  Nans bristled. “I hardly think I would have a motive.”

  “That’s the problem. We don’t know who did have a motive.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lexy said. “You said that Karen was here to look for a mole in the production company. Someone who’s giving secrets to a rival company.”

  “That’s right.”

  “If there is a mole, then maybe Leonard caught him or her and threatened to prosecute. That might be a motive for murder.”

  Garrity twisted his lips together. “Possibly. Leonard’s room was locked from the inside which means he must have let the killer in. Once inside, the killer probably distracted him and added the cyanide to his glass. We need to find out who he let into the room last night.”

  “Too bad no one has come forward to say they saw someone,” Lexy said.

  Nans tapped her fingers on her lips. “Maybe somebody saw something and they just don’t realize it’s important.”

  “Like that busybody Mrs. Pendrake. She seems to be everywhere,” Helen leaned back to look out into the hallway as if expending Mrs. Pendrake to be out there spying on them. “She probably saw something.”

  “Maybe, but is she reliable?” Ruth asked.

  “Are any of them?” Ida replied.

  Nans snapped her fingers. “We don’t need Mrs. Pendrake or any other witness. I think we have something much more reliable.”

  “Whats that?” Jack asked.

  Nans turned to Violet. “Didn’t you say you’d installed a security system that would show anyone entering the library?”

  “Yes, I have valuable books in there.”

  “Well, Leonard’s room was right next to the library.”

  Violet shot out of her seat. “That’s right! Leonard was in the blue room. The camera is pointed at the hallway outside that room. Whoever went in there last night would be captured on the computer files.”

  Chapter Eight

  They rushed over to the other side of the mansion where Violet had her office in a small room off the kitchen. The room had once been some sort of sitting room, Lexy guessed, but now it was retrofitted with a large oak desk facing out a set of double windows that looked out onto the herb garden.

  Violet slid behind the desk and they all crowded around her. She pecked at the keys with one finger in a maddeningly slow pace as she searched for the security program.

  “Here it is.” She hovered the cursor over an icon and clicked it with a flourish. A screen came up and she stared at it with her lips pressed together. “Now, how do I get the access to the data from last night?”

  Ruth, who was a computer whiz, had been leaning over Violet’s shoulder. “Let me try.” She pushed Violet out of the way and sat down at the keys, her fingers flying over them. A few seconds later, they were looking at a picture of the upstairs hallway. The view was directed at the library but just on the edge of the screen you could see the door to the room Leonard had been staying in. The door was shut.

  “Mew!” Houdini jumped on the desk, situated himself in front of the monitor, blocking everyone’s view, and then blinked at them as if they were all looking in his direction to admire him instead of just trying to see the screen he was now blocking.

  “Out of the way.” Ruth pushed him to the side. He lashed his tail in the air, hitting Ruth in the face before turning in a figure eight and settling in front of the screen again.

  Violet picked him up and deposited him on the floor. “Shoo, Houdini, we have important business here.”

  They heard footsteps in the hall and Garrity looked out. “Oh, Karen, please come in here. I want you to see this. We know you went to Leonard’s room last night. Maybe something on this tape will jog your memory.”

  Karen crowded in the room behind them. “What is that?”

  “It’s the security system,” Violet said.

  “I didn’t know you had one.”

  “I don’t think anyone does. Hopefully, that’ll work in our favor,” Jack said. “Because the killer might not know there was one, either. We’re trying to see who went into Leonard’s room last night.”

  As they watched, a small dark figure appeared at the bottom of the screen. Houdini. He trotted down the hallway and disappeared into the library.

  “Is this time-stamped?” Garrity asked.

  “Yes, it’s tied into the computer clock.” Violet pointed to tiny numbers on the bottom right of the screen.

&nbs
p; “Maybe we should fast forward it,” Ida muttered impatiently. “Otherwise, we might be here all day.”

  “We don’t have to. It’s motion activated so we’ll only see when there's activity and then it shuts off after five minutes,” Violet said.

  “What are you guys doing?” They turned and saw the guy with the navy shirt who had helped Danny break into Leonard’s room. They were attracting quite a crowd, but Garrity didn’t seem to mind. Maybe he wanted people to know they were looking at the security tape, thinking it might push the killer into doing something that would expose him, wondered Lexy.

  “We’re looking at the security tape of the hallway outside Leonard’s room from last night,” Jack answered.

  “Oh. You’re thinking you might see the killer, right?”

  Garrity turned and studied the man. “That’s right. Do you know anything about what we might see?”

  “Not me.” He leaned casually against the door frame.

  “There’s someone!” Nans tapped the screen and we watched Karen come into view. She was holding a tray with two drinks on it. She tapped on Leonard’s door. The door cracked open and she handed him the drink, then he shut the door. She turned and walked back in the direction of the stairs.

  “As you can see, he was very much alive when I gave him the drink,” Karen said. “And I didn’t enter his room so I couldn’t have messed with the pills.”

  “You had two drinks on the tray,” Helen said. “Who was the other one for?”

  “That one was for Gloria. A martini. She wanted it delivered in the conservatory,” Karen answered. “I went straight there after I delivered Leonard’s drink.”

  Mrs. Pendrake appeared in the doorway, craning her neck to see what they were doing.

  Another person appeared on the screen and Violet gasped. “Isn’t that Danny, the associate producer?”

  Lexy felt a trill of excitement, but Danny walked past Leonard’s room without even a glance.

  After a few more minutes of empty hallway, Lexy and Jack appeared with Sprinkles. As they got to the doorway heading into the library, Sprinkles tugged at the leash, setting Lexy off balance. Lexy planted her feet on the ground to hold Sprinkles back while the dog tugged and pulled. It looked comical.

  Helen laughed. “What was that all about?”

  “Oh, Sprinkles likes to chase Houdini. He was in the library and she tried to have a go at him. I had to hold her back.”

  “Sprinkles would be wise to keep her distance,” Violet said. “Houdini won’t hesitate to scratch anything that threatens him and his claws are very sharp.”

  They continued to watch the monitor intently. The next person was Gustav Schilling, the man with the mustache. He was walking toward the stairs—away from his room—but he, too, walked straight past Leonard’s room.

  A few more minutes went by, and then they saw Danny again. This time, he was walking toward the stairs. He looked freshly showered and in different clothes from when they had previously seen him.

  “This is the next morning,” Jack tapped the numbers on the bottom of the screen.

  Violet’s brows shot up to her hairline. “But that’s impossible. We didn’t see anyone go into Leo’s room after Karen gave him the drink.”

  “I know,” Jack said.

  “Well, if no one went into his room, and it was chained from the inside, then who poisoned him and staged it as a suicide by taking his pills?” Nans asked.

  A sharp intake of breath came from the back of the crowd. Lexy turned to see Mrs. Pendrake’s pale face staring at them. “Glory be! There’s only one explanation. It must have been the ghost of Wellington Manse.”

  Chapter Nine

  “That wasn’t quite what I was thinking.” Nans frowned at Mrs. Pendrake.

  “But if it wasn’t the ghost, then how did the door get chained? You can’t do that from the outside,” Helen pointed out.

  Nans leaned toward Helen and whispered in a low voice, “This place is loaded with film crew people. They must be savvy about technology. Maybe someone doctored the video.”

  Jack overheard them. “That’s an idea.” He turned to Violet. “Who can get into this office?”

  “Nearly anyone during the day. At night, it’s locked up.” Violet pointed to a shiny lock on the top of the door. “I had to have a new lock installed as the original key had gone missing with the rest of them.”

  “There’s another solution, too,” Ida said. “Maybe someone switched the pill bottle after dinner. After he shook it around and everyone saw it was full, they could have pickpocketed it and replaced it with a container that had no pills.”

  “But don’t you think Leonard would have noticed that all his pills were gone when he got to his room?” Helen asked.

  “He was old. Maybe he forgot how many pills he had or thought he had the wrong bottle.” Ida slid her eyes toward Helen. “I know Helen here has several bottles in various states of fullness for her gout.

  “Ida!”Helen swiped at Ida’s arm and Ida grimaced, but her eyes twinkled mischievously.

  “I don’t know,” Nans said. “How would the killer have known he would even show us the pills? Then he would have to have had another bottle with Leonard’s prescription information on it handy to make the switch at the right time. I think the pills being gone was just an added bonus for the killer.”

  “But if we do take the pill bottle out of the equation, this whole thing makes more sense. We’d only have to figure out how he got the drink with the poison and that would be a lot easier.” Jack’s eyes slid toward Karen.

  Karen pointed at Nans. “Don’t look at me. She made the drink. I just delivered it.”

  “You could have doctored it on the way to his room,” Ida suggested.

  Karen gestured toward the computer. “Can’t you look on that thing? You’ll see I didn’t put anything in the drink.”

  “Actually, we can,” Violet said. “I remember that Mona and I walked with Karen to the bottom of the stairs. So we know she didn’t put anything in it then. The surveillance system monitors the stairs and the hallway to Leonard’s room, so we should be able to see if she did anything on the way to his room.”

  Ruth found the file and they all watched Karen climb the steps and deliver the drink. She was in the clear.

  “Did you see anyone else around after you delivered the drink?”

  Karen shook her head. “No. Well, other than Gloria because I delivered her a drink in the conservatory. After that, I went back to the kitchen and cleaned up.”

  Ida let out a disappointed sigh. “So what now? We just sit around and wait for the killer to trip up?”

  Nans shook her head. “No, we don’t sit still. Next, we look for a motive.”

  They heard sounds in the hallway and looked over to see Danny Manning walking by, his head bowed, apparently deep in thought. When he noticed the crowd, he stopped and looked at them. “What are you guys doing in here?”

  Navy Shirt answered him. “It turns out there is a video surveillance that shows the hallway outside of Leonard’s room. We're looking to see who went into his room last night.”

  Danny’s left brow rose a fraction of an inch. “Oh, really? Who was that?”

  “That’s the thing,” Mrs. Pendrake said excitedly. “No one entered Leonard’s room. No human, that is. Which leaves only one answer—it was the ghost of Wellington Manse.”

  A look of excitement spread on Danny’s face. “Really? You guys think Leonard was killed by the ghost?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He’d already pulled his cell phone out and was punching in numbers. As it rang, he turned back to them. “This is perfect! It makes the documentary much more interesting. I’m sure the home office will give us the green light to go ahead now!” He walked off down the hallway with a spring in his step.

  Helen and Ida raised their brows at each other and Ida said what both of them were thinking, “That sounds like motive to me.”

  Chapter Ten

  Lex
y and the ladies were heading toward the library to go over the clues in private when they heard the familiar clackity-clack-clack of stilettos behind them.

  “I saw you all in Violet’s office,” Gloria said. “What was going on in there? Does Inspector Garrity have any new clues?”

  “We were going over the surveillance video,” Ruth said.

  “Surveillance?” Gloria looked at them with blank eyes.

  “Violet has a security system installed and one of the cameras happens to point to the hallway outside the room Leonard was staying in.”

  Gloria looked toward the ceiling as if she were searching for a camera. “I didn’t know there were cameras everywhere.”

  “They aren’t everywhere. Just the hallway and stairs, as far as I know,” Ruth said.

  “We thought we would see the killer on the video,” Ida added.

  Gloria’s perfectly plucked brows shot up. “And did you?”

  Nans shook her head. “Unfortunately, no.”

  “So who do they think did it?” Gloria shifted on her feet. Lexy didn’t blame her for trying to take the weight off. Those stilettos looked mighty uncomfortable.

  “We don’t know.” Nans’ face turned thoughtful. “Karen said she brought you a drink in the conservatory. Is that right?”

  “Yes. A martini.”

  “And who were you with in there?”

  Gloria laughed. “Nobody? Unless you count the cat.”

  “How long did you stay there?” Nans persisted.

  “Oh, about an hour.”

  “And did you see anyone else walk by in the hallway or outside?”

  Gloria pressed her bright red lips together, the wheels behind her eyes turning slowly. “No.”

  “What did you do after?”

  She shrugged. “I went to bed.” Then her eyes widened. “Oh! But I did see someone on the way to bed.”

  They leaned forward with excitement. “Really? Who?”