Crossing the Lion (a Reigning Cats and Dog) (2010) (9 page)

I cleared my throat. “Winston has asked that the family meet downstairs in the conservatory,” I said when Brock glanced up. “He has something he wants to talk to everyone about.”

Without a word, he clamped his book closed and started to rise from the bed. But I noticed he held the
book to one side, as if to prevent me from seeing the cover.

Interesting
, I thought.
So Brock may have a few secrets. Either that or he’s simply embarrassed by his choice of reading matter
.

I found Missy in what I surmised had been her father’s study, running her fingers along a shelf of leather-bound books. They looked as if they’d been in that exact same spot for so long that they were part of the building’s structure.

Scarlett was on the other side of the room, settled into a chair with a stack of papers in her lap. From the three or four piles on the floor around her, she appeared to be sorting through them one by one, probably trying to figure out a way to handle whatever unfinished paperwork Linus had left behind.

Since this was the first glimpse I’d gotten of Linus’s study, I hovered in the doorway for a few seconds, looking around eagerly while trying not to be too obvious. Two entire walls were lined with the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that at the moment held Missy’s interest. A huge desk dominated the back half of the room. Manila folders and stacks of papers covered the desk completely, leaving room only for an ornate brass lamp with a stained-glass Tiffany-style shade. Centered on the floor in front of the desk was a large, lush Oriental carpet with an intricate pattern, the varying shades of red probably once brilliant but now faded.

A series of framed black-and-white photographs hung on one of the bare walls. Even from where I
stood, I could see that they were shots of Solitude Island taken back in the estate’s glory days. The mansion looked stately, rather than decaying. The manicured front lawn and well-tended gardens bursting with blossoms also helped. I spotted a photograph of an elegant glass greenhouse that didn’t seem to exist anymore. Yet the narrow wooden dock was the same one at which our ferry had landed when we’d arrived, with the same tiny boathouse jutting up at the far end.

“I don’t see how Mummy will ever have the heart to go through his things,” Missy was saying. With a sigh, she added, “Daddy was the center of her universe. Of course, I’m the same way with Townie. I think seeing what a wonderful marriage my parents had served as a model for my—oh, hello, Jessie!”

Even as she smiled at me brightly, her brown eyes clouded. I wondered if she was trying to figure out how much I’d overheard—and what she’d been saying before I walked into the room.

Or maybe you’re just reading too much into things
, I warned myself.

“Hello,” I said with an awkward little wave. “Sorry to interrupt, but Winston wants everyone to meet in the conservatory. He just came back from Riverton, and he has some news he wants to share.”

Missy and Scarlett exchanged a look of dismay, then immediately rose and headed for the door.

“I’ll get Townie,” Missy said breathlessly. “Tell everyone I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“And I’ll find Tag,” Scarlett volunteered. “The last
time I saw him, he said he planned to spend the morning working out in the rec room.”

Once I managed to round everyone up in the conservatory, most people pretty much drifted toward the same spot in which they’d positioned themselves the previous evening, right before dinner. This morning, Tag and Harry, the two more recent arrivals, stood near the windows, with Townie joining them.

The dogs acted as if they thought getting everyone together in one room like this was a great idea. Corky lay in front of the fireplace, happily ripping a rawhide chew to shreds. Admiral plunked himself in front of Charlotte, who distractedly stroked his head with the same affection she’d exhibited around her collection of keepsakes. As for Frederick, he’d insisted on curling up in Betty’s lap. I supposed even he preferred seeking out the familiar when the air was so thick with tension.

Winston waited in silence as the small talk died down. Meanwhile, he stared into the flames in the fireplace. The seriousness of the expression on his face was causing a knot to form in my stomach.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was anxious.

“So what’s the news?” Tag finally asked impatiently. “Whatever it is, I have a feeling it’s going to seem anticlimactic after all this drama.”

“Be quiet, Tag,” Missy scolded. “I’m sure Winston has something important to tell us. I can tell just by looking at him that there’s something on his mind.”

“It is quite important,” Winston said, finally turning away from the fire to address the group. Speaking
in his usual impeccable English accent, he continued, “Last night, right before we all headed upstairs to bed, Charlotte asked me to join Oliver Withers at a meeting he’d arranged with the medical examiner’s office. So first thing this morning I took the ferry over to Long Island and drove to Riverton.”

A stricken look crossed Scarlett’s face. In a thick voice, she asked, “Have they already gotten the results of the autopsy? I thought it took much longer.”

“You’re right, it usually does take longer,” Winston agreed. “But this time they made an exception.”

“Probably because Linus was so important,” Townie commented.

“Or because he was so rich,” Brock muttered.

“Whatever the reason,” Winston said impatiently, “the results of the autopsy are quite … devastating.”

A heavy silence fell over the room as we all waited for him to continue. Every pair of eyes was fixed on him as he said, “It appears that Linus died from an allergic reaction.”

Linus had a severe allergy?
I thought.

But I’d barely had a chance to form the question in my mind before Missy cried, “Daddy ate
eggs
?”

“But that’s impossible!” Brock exclaimed. “Eggs haven’t been allowed on this island for decades!”

Eggs?
I thought, not sure I’d heard correctly.

But then a lightbulb went off in my head as I pictured the breakfast buffet. It had included sausage, bacon, and hash browns—but no eggs. It wasn’t until this moment that the significance of the omission struck me.

“Eggs have always been treated like hand grenades around here,” Tag muttered. “Who would have had the audacity to sneak any onto the island?”

“Obviously the person who wanted to kill him,” Scarlett said. She immediately turned the same color as her name, as if it had just occurred to her that she might have said something she shouldn’t have.

“That’s certainly what it looks like,” Winston agreed softly.

“Wait, go back to the beginning,” Townie insisted. “Tell us exactly what they found during the autopsy.”

Winston took a deep breath. “A lot of this terminology is new to me, so forgive me if I get some things wrong. But basically the medical examiner’s conclusion is that Linus suffered from the symptoms of anaphylaxis, which is most commonly associated with a serious food allergy.”

“It’s something we’ve all worried about for years,” Charlotte said in a strained voice. The color had drained from her face, making me glad that the ladies happened to be sitting down, after all.

Scarlett still looked confused. “It seems as if the rest of you are familiar with this ana … ana—”

“Anaphylaxis,” I said, unable to resist jumping in. “The term refers to an allergic reaction that’s severe enough to be life-threatening. When certain people ingest a food they’re allergic to, the airways in their lungs become constricted, their blood pressure drops dramatically, and their tongue and throat swell to the point of causing suffocation.

“It’s not all that common,” I added, “at least not to
such a serious degree. I seem to remember reading that the number of Americans who die from food allergies every year is about one hundred fifty.”

“And the old man was one of them,” Brock said, sounding amazed.

“I don’t know much about this,” Betty interjected, “but isn’t there some kind of injection people with allergies can give themselves—something they always keep with them?”

“EpiPens,” I said with a nod. “People who know they have serious allergies generally carry one with them at all times. It’s the size and shape of an ordinary pen, but it’s actually a shot of epinephrine, the antidote to allergic reactions.”

Automatically I glanced over at Charlotte.

“Of course we have EpiPens,” she said, still looking as if she was in shock. “Dozens of them, all over the house, in the cars, even on the ferry. I can’t imagine why Linus couldn’t get to one any more than I can imagine who allowed a food that he was so horribly allergic to onto this island.”

Turning to his mother, Brock demanded, “Tell us exactly what happened that night. After dinner, I mean, when you were with him. How was Dad acting right before he died?”

“I—I don’t know,” Charlotte replied, twisting her hands in her lap. “You see, I wasn’t actually with him. I left him alone after we finished dinner and all of you went your separate ways throughout the house. He told me he was tired and wanted to rest. He went up to our bedroom, and I stayed down here to read by
the fire. When I went upstairs a while later, I found him …”

Once again, her voice trailed off before she finished her sentence.

Tag let out a low whistle. “So the old man was murdered.”

“But couldn’t it have been an accident?” Missy protested. “After all, everyone loved Daddy!”

“Apparently not,” Tag observed dryly.

“It seems unlikely that it was accidental,” Brock said. “Mother is right. Everyone in this house, including the staff, was fully aware of how terribly allergic Dad was to eggs. The possibility that an egg—or something made with eggs—was served to him without someone fully intending to do him harm seems pretty remote.”

“According to the medical examiner, allergic reactions occur quickly,” Winston noted. “That means that whatever food contained the eggs had to have been ingested shortly before he died.”

“This is horrible!” Scarlett cried, looking stricken. “What you’re saying is that he probably died because of something he ate at his birthday dinner!”

“Given the contents of Linus’s stomach at the autopsy,” Winston added somberly, “the medical examiner believes the cake was the culprit.”

“Not his birthday cake!” Scarlett exclaimed. “That’s too horrible to imagine!”

“Death by chocolate,” Tag said under his breath. “Literally.”

“It makes sense,” Brock mused. “I’m not what
you’d call a great cook, but even I know that nothing else served at that meal was likely to have contained eggs. A birthday cake could not only contain them, they would be impossible to detect.”

“Cook is the one who prepared Linus’s last meal, including his birthday cake,” Townie pointed out, his forehead furrowing. “Doesn’t that make her the most likely suspect?”

“I’m sure the police will do everything they can to find out if she knows anything about this,” Betty said.

“It couldn’t have been Cook,” Brock scoffed. “She’s been with our family for close to forty years. Not only did she make all the meals at our place in the city, she also came out here on weekends and vacations whenever we did. She’s practically a member of the family.”

“She certainly kept us well fed,” Missy piped up.

“She did more than that,” Brock insisted. “The woman practically raised the three of us. I remember all those times she made us fudge or some other sweet that didn’t require eggs, then decorated whatever goodies she’d whipped up with little jack-o’-lanterns or Christmas trees—”

“She taught me how to bake,” Missy said wistfully. “In fact, I remember bringing my entire Brownie troop here to the house so she could teach us how to make a cake. I even remember her telling us all about food allergies and talking about how to substitute the ingredients in a recipe.”

“I remember one Thanksgiving when each of us insisted we simply had to have a different kind of pie,”
Brock added. “I wanted apple, Tag insisted on pumpkin, Missy wanted pecan … Anyway, I remember Cook staying up half the night making three different kinds.” With a deep sigh, he added, “That woman has been dedicated to this family for practically her entire life.”

“But she’s hardly the sole suspect,” Tag observed. “After all, Cook isn’t the only person who could have interfered with the old man’s last meal.”

While I didn’t feel it was my place to chime in with my opinion, I couldn’t have agreed more. In fact, I’d come to that exact conclusion while Missy and Brock were reminiscing about the role Cook had played in their family’s life while they were growing up.

Tag continued, “I can’t resist pointing out that there’s room on the suspect list for almost everyone in this room right now, as well as Jives and Gwennie—anyone who was in this house that night.

“Besides,” he went on in a jeering tone, “either that day or the day before, every one of us was on Long Island, where eggs are as easy to find as … as traffic. Missy, Townie, Brock, and I all showed up here at the house that afternoon, a few hours before Dad’s dinner. So did Harry and Scarlett. Any one of us could have stopped somewhere on the trip over and picked up a dozen ticking time bombs.

“As for Mom and the servants, they were no doubt traveling back and forth between Solitude Island and Long Island for days, shopping and running errands and doing whatever else they needed to do to get ready for the big birthday bash. They had as much opportunity
to sneak eggs or something made with eggs onto the island as we did—which means that any one of us could have added the magic ingredient to the old man’s food.”

“Tag, that’s a vile thing to say!” his sister protested.

“Even for you,” Brock added in a snide voice.

“We can count out Winston and Betty and Jessica, of course, but let’s face it,” Tag went on breezily. “Every other person who’s in the house had something to gain from the old man’s death—which makes each and every one of us a suspect.”

“Tag, please stop!” Charlotte protested. “This is hardly the time and place—”

“Why not be honest for a change?” Tag interrupted. “True, it’s something this family has never been very good at. Owning up to the truth is simply not an area in which the Merrywoods have ever excelled.”