Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ida Belle must have had spies watching downtown to see when I rolled through because I’d barely made it inside my house before she and Gertie came barging in.
“Carter’s at work so you have plenty of time to fill us in,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie nodded. “I baked a casserole earlier in case you were hungry, so we don’t lose any time foraging for food. And Ida Belle picked up cookies at Ally’s. We checked with Carter on the beer supply, so everything’s ready for you.”
I smiled. “Can I use the bathroom first?”
Gertie threw her hands in the air. “Hurry up! We’ve been waiting forever.”
“I was gone two days.”
“And if you’d taken us with you, you’d be headed to bed for a nap instead of to the kitchen for the Spanish Inquisition.”
“I called in a favor with a Costa Rican informant I used to work with and got a private flight. I wasn’t allowed any baggage—especially the human kind.”
Twenty minutes later, I was halfway through a hefty serving of casserole and completely through with my story. Ida Belle and Gertie stared at me, then each other, then back at me.
“That’s incredible,” Gertie said. “The whole thing is like something out of a movie.”
“I can’t believe Jasper is alive,” Ida Belle said. “I’m glad, of course, but that was a twist I did not see coming.”
“I didn’t see any of this coming,” Gertie said. “And don’t you go saying you did.”
“No. I’m definitely floored by all of it.”
She looked at me. “I didn’t realize you were still processing all of this. It’s been a couple weeks. I figured you’d put it to bed like we had.”
“I tried to, but something kept bothering me. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I almost dropped a bottle of water and asked Gertie to send me those pictures of the house that she took. And that’s when it all made sense. But I couldn’t be certain until I verified it.”
They both looked confused.
“I get how the picture of the garage gave away Mildred’s back being okay,” Ida Belle said, “but what does almost dropping a bottle of water have to do with it?”
I put down my fork and leaned forward. “The day I left, Carter brought me a bottle of water outside and set it on the table. When I reached for it a couple minutes later, it was covered in condensation and I almost dropped it.”
“Sure,” Ida Belle said. “Because the water in the bottle was cold but it was hot outside.”
“Exactly.”
I pulled up the picture Gertie had taken of Eleanor in the sauna. “Look at the water bottle.”
They both peered at the phone.
“It’s sweating,” Gertie said. “But it’s in the sauna. Of course it’s sweating.”
“Except Eleanor took the bottle of water with her into the sauna, and she’d been in there for over forty-five minutes based on the timer, right?”
Gertie nodded and then both their eyes widened.
“The temperature of the water in the bottle should have matched the room by then,” Ida Belle said. “It wouldn’t have still been sweating.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“You think someone switched the bottle?” Gertie asked. “But who? And why?”
“Remember, the water bottle in the sauna didn’t have any of the drugs in it,” I said.
“Which was convenient because then it didn’t allow for someone to have doctored her water beforehand and just waited her out.
We assumed that Zion had slipped her the meds before she went into the cabin or that Eleanor had deliberately taken them when offered.
But what I think happened is that someone dosed Eleanor’s water, knowing she’d go into the sauna after class like she always did, and then replaced it with a fresh bottle before the cops got there, just like I did with Calahan. ”
“But why the need to replace the drugged water with a new one?” Ida Belle asked.
“To make sure it looked like taking the drugs wasn’t her choice, which was most likely to cast suspicion on Zion.
He was the last person to see Eleanor alive—that anyone knew of.
And he was getting involved with Kim, whom the drugs belonged to.
If Eleanor had taken the drugs voluntarily, then they would still be in the cabin. ”
“Wait,” Gertie said. “Are you saying Zion didn’t drug Eleanor?”
“I don’t think so. Putting the drugs in the cabin he lived in with Sapphire was just to tighten the noose on Zion. But I believe that since the real poisoner didn’t know whose nightstand was whose, they got it wrong and put the drugs in Sapphire’s side.”
“Which is why Zion accused Sapphire of drugging Eleanor,” Ida Belle said. “So you don’t think Sapphire was the poisoner either.”
“No. As soon as Sapphire heard Eleanor had died, she bounced, filed for divorce, and paid Zion off to get rid of him. Those actions don’t jibe with a woman killing to keep her man.
If Sapphire had done it and Zion accidentally got caught in the cross fire, she would have told him to shut up and lawyered him up.
Plus, even though she has horrible taste in men, I doubt she would have been foolish enough to keep stolen drugs in her own nightstand. ”
“Well, who do you think did it then?” Ida Belle asked. “Kim?”
I shook my head.
Ida Belle looked at Gertie, both of them clearly confused.
“But there’s a limited number of people that would have even known Kim had the drugs,” Ida Belle said. “And more importantly, how did they get the water into the sauna, and then there’s— Good. God. If someone switched the water bottles, then they also killed Eleanor.”
I nodded.
They both looked at each other then back at me.
Gertie’s jaw dropped. “There’s only one other person who could have…”
“You think Mildred killed her sister?” Ida Belle asked.
“Yes.”
“But how?” Gertie asked. “I mean, I’ll give you that since her back was actually fine, she could have climbed out her office window and taken the trail to Eleanor’s cabin.
There would be no record of the open window because they didn’t have sensors.
The trail’s a harder walk but half the distance that way, and everyone knew Kim never got in a rush.
But Kim said she heard Mildred in her office working around the same time we all heard the gunshot. ”
“But did she?” I asked. “Or could she have heard Mildred’s computer playing a recording of her typing?
Remember how Mildred turned off the alarm with her phone?
She could just as easily set a video to play in case Kim came down the hallway.
If she had control of her desktop through her phone, she could have easily turned off the video after Kim left to go find Eleanor. ”
“And she would have known when Kim left because the motion detector would have sent her an alert when she passed by,” Ida Belle said.
“But with the motion sensor at Eleanor’s cabin broken, the system wouldn’t have a log of anyone passing that way,” I said. “Mildred could have easily sneaked into the cabin and there would have been no indication that she’d ever been there.”
Gertie shook her head. “That cabin was dead-bolted from the inside. And all the windows were locked. I don’t care how good Mildred’s back was, she couldn’t walk through walls. And there is no way to draw that dead bolt or latch those windows from the outside.”
“I agree,” I said. “I think Mildred was still in the cabin when you shot the dead bolt off the door.”
“What?”
“No way!”
They both yelled at once.
I nodded. “I think she waited until Eleanor was half conscious because of the drugs, went in there and placed the gun in her hand and pulled the trigger. Then since she’d broken the blender, she waited for Kim to come get Eleanor and hid behind the couch nearest the door when she saw her coming.”
“So you think she was crouched behind the couch when Kim and I came in?” Gertie asked.
“Yes. I noticed when I went into the cabin that the front door wasn’t visible beyond the first couple feet of the hallway.
When you and Kim went to the sauna, I believe Mildred sneaked out and took the trail back to the office.
Remember you said that you’d never seen someone go from flushed to pale that quickly?
But why would Mildred be flushed if all she’d been doing was paperwork in her office? ”
“I was so flustered myself I didn’t even think about it,” Gertie said.
“Despite a successful surgery, I’m sure that run through the woods cost her,” I said.
Gertie frowned. “She did seem even slower after the retreat than she was while we were there.”
Ida Belle leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. “That was a huge, huge risk.”
“Yes.”
“What if Kim had run from the sauna without going in and saw Mildred in the living room or on the porch?” Gertie asked.
I shrugged. “I’ll assume she was wearing a hoodie, so she probably would have taken off into the woods.
Kim wasn’t likely to chase her, especially after seeing Eleanor that way.
Her lack of urgency with any form of exercise was common knowledge and she didn’t know the trails like Mildred did.
And I think we can assume Mildred had been practicing that run as often as she could.
But Mildred was really hoping Kim would do exactly what she did—fall apart, maybe even pass out—because it would give her time to get away. ”
“What if I’d just shot her while she was running off?” Gertie asked.
“You coming along with Kim and shooting the dead bolt off the door was probably something Mildred didn’t consider,” I said. “That’s where she got very lucky that you were both in the sauna long enough for her to get away. And that Dorothy didn’t arrive any sooner.”
“But how did Mildred think Kim would get into the cabin since the dead bolt was drawn? She’s hardly the type to shoot off locks or walk around with a crowbar.”
“She probably assumed Kim would break the window nearest the door and reach in and pull the dead bolt back. That would have been the easiest way in.”
“Oh,” Gertie said.