Fixing To Die

An’gel spent at the most twenty minutes sharing what she had learned with Lieutenant Steinberg. She stuck to the main points. She knew he would have to dig into the details anyway and verify everything she told him.

She had been right about the lieutenant talking further with Kanesha Berry. The Athena sheriff’s deputy had convinced Steinberg that he would be remiss in his duties should he ignore An’gel and any information she managed to uncover. Steinberg hadn’t apologized for his earlier attitude, and An’gel didn’t expect him to. The main thing was that he was now listening to her and taking notes.

“That’s all,” An’gel said when she’d finished.

“That’s a lot.” Steinberg laid aside his pen. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes for a moment. An’gel thought he looked tired.

“Do you have any further questions for me?” An’gel asked. “If not, I’d like to ask you one.”

Steinberg’s eyes popped open. “No other questions right this minute, Miss Ducote. What is it you want to ask me?”

“Will you tell me how Nathan Gamble died?”

Steinberg looked at her for a long moment. “At this point, I don’t see why not. We believe that he was smothered to death. There were signs of asphyxia when the doctor examined him on the scene.”

I knew it, he purposely misled us, An’gel thought. He was playing his cards close to his chest.

“Further,” Steinberg continued, “we think that he may have been drugged into a sound sleep. We will have to wait for the outcome of the toxicological analysis on that to be absolutely sure, but there are indications that he was too out of it to fight back.”

“Then that means pretty much anyone could have killed him. They wouldn’t have to be particularly strong to do it if he was in no condition to fight them,” An’gel said.

“Yes, exactly,” Steinberg said. “And there you see my biggest problem. I don’t know who did it.”

“Do you have any idea where the sleep medication came from?” An’gel asked.

“There was no bottle or container of it in the room,” Steinberg said, “so we have to assume it came from someone else. We also don’t know whether he took it willingly or if he was unaware. During our search of the house, we discovered that four people had sleeping pills with them.”

“Will you tell me who they are?” An’gel asked.

Steinberg hesitated, then said, “The housekeeper, the lawyer, the deceased’s sister, and the so-called psychic.”

At first An’gel was thankful that he hadn’t mentioned Mary Turner, but then she realized that Mary Turner could have easily gotten the pills from Marcelline. How had the killer managed to get Nathan Gamble to take the pills? Or had he taken them himself?

She voiced this question to the policeman. He shrugged. “There was nothing in the room to indicate how, other than a glass and a bottle of water. That bottle hadn’t been opened, though, and there was no other bottle or source of water in the room.”

“He could have gone to the bathroom to get water from the sink,” An’gel said.

“Yes, of course,” Steinberg said. “The autopsy might tell us how the pills were taken but that could be a few weeks.”

“You need a break in the case,” An’gel said.

“Obviously,” Steinberg replied, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.

An’gel ignored the sarcasm. “I have an idea that could yield results, but you might think it too crazy.”

“I won’t know till I’ve heard it,” Steinberg said. “Shoot.”

•   •   •

At first Dickce thought An’gel had gone slightly off her rocker when she first told them her idea for smoking out the killer. A séance? Seriously?

“It’s not as crazy as it sounds,” An’gel had protested. Benjy seemed enthusiastic about the idea, particularly when An’gel explained what she wanted him to do. His eyes sparkled with mischief. “It will be fun,” he said.

Dickce warmed to the idea but she had reservations. “What will you do if something unexpected turns up?”

“Improvise,” An’gel said. “You don’t seriously think we’ll be summoning spirits from beyond the grave, do you? This is more of a psychological exercise than a spiritual one.”

“If you say so,” Dickce said. As the time neared for the séance to start, however, she grew increasingly curious about exactly what might happen.

Alesha Jackson had agreed to conduct the séance. Dickce knew her sister could be pretty persuasive, but she had to wonder about the psychic’s motive in complying with the request. If Alesha Jackson was the killer, Dickce reasoned, she might somehow give herself away during the séance. Though exactly how that might be, Dickce wasn’t sure.

They were all at the dinner table that evening when Alesha Jackson startled everyone—except Dickce, An’gel, and Benjy—by announcing that she had received a message from one of her spirit guides that tonight she should hold a séance. The ghost of Cliffwood, they told her, was ready to communicate with her.