Murder Takes the High Road(71)

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Vance said.

“Language,” Yvonne snapped.

“Yes, it is,” Vance replied.

Ben scowled at him.

“We can try the radio,” Hamish volunteered.

Sally opened her mouth, scanned Nedda’s face, closed her mouth.

“Let’s do that,” Wally said.

Nedda went with Wally and Hamish to radio the mainland, but they were back shortly after.

“No go,” Wally told us. I thought Nedda must have had a chance to talk to him in private because the alarm in his eyes matched the worry in hers.

*

We dined by candlelight.

Not from choice. The power went out midway through the meal.

“It could be worse,” Rose observed. “It could have gone while dinner was being cooked.”

One thing for sure, between the flickering candlelight throwing sinister shadows over everyone’s faces, and the rolling boom of thunder crashing overhead, there was no shortage of ambiance.

It probably goes without saying it was a weird night. A little too And Then There Were None for my taste. With the exception of Daya who, according to Roddy, was lying prostrate upstairs with another headache, we were all in attendance, and at first the evening was almost cathartic as we talked about the books and how much it had meant to meet Vanessa even if only briefly. We discussed the fate of Buried Secrets, but there wasn’t much mystery there. Vanessa had said the book was already sent in to her publisher.

We talked about how Vanessa’s death would likely be received on social media and in the news, and then we started wondering aloud if we would be interviewed and what that would be like and whether—this from Vance—there might be opportunities for us in that.

“What kind of opportunities?” Laurel asked, frowning.

Vance shrugged. “Sometimes papers pay for photos and interviews.”

“Photos?” Elizabeth said.

“Speaking hypothetically,” Vance said.

His too-careless tone made me glad Elizabeth had the foresight to lock Vanessa’s bedroom. It’s amazing how frequently that gets overlooked in mystery novels.

We were all shocked, but I thought Vanessa’s death separated us into two camps. Jim, Wally, Ben, Roddy, Vance...they were clearly there to accompany the real fans. They had not signed on for murder, but they were not grieving. Laurel, Nedda, Sally, Rose, Trevor, the Poe girls and I were the devotees. Daya was presumably a super fan, but she was dealing with her grief in her own way.

Yvonne was the interesting one. To me, Yvonne seemed tuned out. Literally tuned out, as in listening to another channel set to a higher frequency that none of us could hear. Maybe that blunted affect was shock. She was an unusual personality anyway, and extreme circumstances inevitably highlighted her peculiarities.

Whatever the cause, she had very little to say, eating her meal with apparent satisfaction—which was unusual right there—and listening to the rest of us without comment.

Sadness aside, it was a delicious meal. The starter of game soup was followed by roast haunch of sika deer with mashed potatoes, and vegetables drizzled in a port and redcurrant jelly sauce. I was thinking none of us would be hungry, but we all ate, myself included. We even decimated the cheese plate. And there was whisky. More whisky.

By then, we were all half-crocked, which is probably why Sally suggested that we should work together to figure out who had killed Vanessa.

I almost choked on my Laphroaig 10.

Nedda said, “What the what? I never said she was murdered!”

“You didn’t have to, old girl,” Roddy told her, righting the empty wineglass he’d knocked over. “Perfectly obvious to anyone with eyes in their head.”

“It’s the safest way,” Sally said defensively, in response to my sputtering. “We each tell everything we know. Then there’s no reason for anyone to try to shut us up.”

“You underestimate yourself, my dear,” Rose said kindly.

“In a book, yes,” I said. “In real life, I’m not sure cornering a murderer is going to work out well for us.”

“There’s safety in numbers. There are seventeen of us. Eighteen counting Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth. I nearly told her to save her strength.

Sally rushed on, “Not to mention all the people Vanessa employs.”

I said, “And yet, taking all those people into account, Vanessa is still past tense.”

Rose drained her tumbler and reached for the bottle of Glenmorangie before it passed her by. “Maybe Sal has a point. There’s no reason we can’t do some preliminary groundwork. It will make their job easier for the police.”

“Rose, do you remember what happened to you the last time you played amateur sleuth?” I inquired.

Her cheeks grew pink. “That was make-believe.”

“None of us will sleep a wink tonight,” Sally insisted. “We may as well do something useful.”

Everyone began to talk at once.

Everyone but Yvonne. “I’m going to bed.” She pushed back her chair. “I’m exhausted and this conversation is idiotic.” She rose. Ben rose too, but that was just good manners.

Elizabeth said, “You’d better take one of the candelabras.”

Yvonne picked up one of the candelabras. The flames threw wild shadows against the wall as she stared at us. Ben sat down and scrubbed his face with his hands. He looked truly exhausted.