I poked my foot in the water and was somewhat disappointed at how tepid it was. Like all indoor pools, the humidity level was high. Living in Maine gets you accustomed to cold water, particularly in the ocean, where the water is bracing—frigid to newcomers—even on the hottest days of midsummer. I prefer cold water.
I submerged myself and did a backstroke toward Samantha, resting at the opposite end of the pool. She pulled herself up from the water and sat on the edge of the pool, cocking her head and hitting the opposite side with the heel of her hand to dislodge water from her ear.
A family with two small children had been in the pool when I arrived, but they soon departed, leaving us alone.
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something personal,” I said.
She nodded and spent a few seconds collecting her thoughts and deciding how to say what was on her mind. She seemed to study her fingers, pressing each one, as if counting off arguments in her mind.
“You owe me,” she said at last, glancing in my direction and then looking back down at her hands.
“If you’re referring to saving my life when the vestibule door came unlatched, you’re right,” I said. Despite the warm water surrounding me, I shivered at the image of being dangled over the Fraser Canyon with only a swinging door to keep me from plunging to the ravine below. “I owe you my thanks, and I’m very grateful that you were there and that you had the good sense to grab my skirt to pull me back in.”
“You owe me more than thanks.”
What was she trying to tell me? Did she want some compensation for her actions? A reward? It hadn’t occurred to me to offer her money as thanks. Was she looking for public recognition, a story in the newspaper? I hadn’t praised her in public. Perhaps I’d been remiss, and she wanted people to know how brave she’d been—and she had—to reach out, putting her own life in jeopardy to save mine. “Samantha, I apologize for not talking about how wonderful you were. I should have given you credit, told everyone how you saved me. I guess I wasn’t thinking—”
“That’s not it.” She was becoming agitated.
“What? What is it you’d like me to do?”
Her mouth worked, but she couldn’t get the words out. At last she blurted, “Keep the police away from my mother.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My mother didn’t do it,” she said loudly.
“Didn’t do what?”
“Kill Blevin.”
I said nothing.
“You believed he was murdered from the beginning, didn’t you? ‘Poisoned,’ you said. ‘He may have been poisoned.’ You told me not to touch him. I heard you. You said it.”
I’d told her not to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but now was not the time to correct the record. “It was only speculation,” I said.
“Yeah. But now it’s been confirmed.”
When I didn’t respond, she shouted at me, “Hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “How did you find out?”
“Rumors are flying on the train. You think I don’t hear them, but I do. I won’t let you hurt her.”
“Why do you think that I or the police would suspect your mother?”
“Because Blevin killed my father.” Her voice was low now, almost whining.
I frowned up at her. I tried for a reasonable tone, trying to calm her rising hysteria. “That’s quite an accusation,” I said. “But that’s not what your mother told me. She said your father died of a heart attack.”
“He never would have had that attack if Alvin Blevin hadn’t swindled him.” She angrily dashed tears from her eyes. “He did it. I know he did it. He did it on purpose.” She began rocking back and forth, hugging herself, her feet pressed against the side of the pool. A long moan escaped her.
I put a hand on her knee. “How did Alvin Blevin swindle your father?” I asked softly.
Her body stiffened and she glared at me, her face twisted by the loathing she couldn’t contain. “Al Blevin was a self-centered, conniving, dishonest, vile human being.”
I took a step back. The virulence of her hatred startled me. “What did he do? What happened?”
It was Marilyn who answered. “I’ll tell you what happened.”
I hadn’t seen her come into the pool room; I’d been so intent on her daughter. She was standing on the side of the pool, watching Samantha closely.
“Ma, Ma. She won’t tell him. She promised.”
“What happened, Marilyn? Why does Samantha say Alvin Blevin killed your husband.”
Marilyn sighed. “Just as good as.” She walked behind her child, knelt down, and began massaging Samantha’s shoulders. “Robert was Al’s partner in a land deal in West Vancouver. It was worth millions. Robert threw himself into the project, devoted two years of his life to it. The last two years of his life.”
I waited for her to continue.
“He died before the deal could be consummated. Blevin had cheated him, tying up construction with red tape until Robert ran out of money. Blevin scooped up the project and finished it without him. We never saw a penny from it.”
Samantha swallowed a sob.
“C’mon, honey,” Marilyn said. “Let’s go back to our room.”
“I hated him,” she said to her mother. “I hated him.”
“I know. Let’s go.”
Samantha stood and looked back to me. “She didn’t kill him. And I don’t want you to think she did.”
“I don’t think she did,” I said, “but it really doesn’t matter what I think. Blevin’s death is now strictly a police matter.”
“And you have an in with the police. Don’t think it hasn’t been noticed how close you and Marshall are.” She was shouting again. “Did you tell the detective that you suspect her?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Don’t tell him. You owe me that. I saved your life. The police don’t have to know about my father’s dealings with him.”
I understood her concerns and was even sympathetic. But asking me to withhold information from law enforcement caused my back to stiffen. Someone had been murdered in a cruel fashion. Whoever did it would have to pay for that crime, no matter who it was.
“If I’m asked by Detective Marshall, I won’t lie,” I told them.
Marilyn’s expression said she was offended at the notion. “I would never ask anyone to do that, Jessica,” she said. “But not offering more than one is asked doesn’t constitute perjury. What I just told you, I told you in confidence. Blevin contributed to my husband’s heart attack; I have no doubt about that. But that doesn’t mean I would ever think of killing him. I just want you to know that.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Let’s go, sweetheart,” Marilyn said to her daughter.
Samantha backed up a few steps and ran at the pool, diving over me, her body a graceful arc above my head. I moved to the side but was not swift enough to avoid the splash that engulfed me when she torpedoed into the water. I lost my footing and went under with a gasp. Water hit my lungs and I rocketed to the surface, choking and coughing, struggling for air.
“Samantha! I’m ashamed of you,” Marilyn chided. “I’m sorry, Jessica. Are you all right?”
I nodded, but the water still in my lungs kept me from speaking.
Samantha pulled herself out of the other end of the pool, got to her feet, and went to the chair where she’d put her robe and slippers. Mother and daughter left me alone in the water.
I rested by the side of the pool until my breathing was regular again, and I coughed only occasionally. I couldn’t put the incident out of my mind as I went to my room to change out of my bathing suit into street clothes. Samantha was ill, I now knew. It was becoming harder for her to maintain the illusion of normality. True, she was protecting her mother. But was she also protecting herself? She was a nurse, which meant she would have learned something about poisons. She had access to strychnine—anyone who bought rat poison did—and she would be aware of the lethal dose. She had motive, too. Not only had her mother lost her husband, allegedly due to Blevin’s business dealings, but Samantha had lost a father. Had her father’s ruin and subsequent death enraged the daughter? Enraged her enough to kill?
I needed a distraction. I went downstairs to browse in a gift shop on the property and bought a few souvenirs to take back home. The clerk told me that the rose hip oil was a specialty of the house. They grew the roses and made the oil themselves at the ranch. Celebrities swore by it for their complexion. She gave me a sample to try.
After paying for my purchases, I stepped out onto a broad deck at the front of the shop. It was still bright out. The farther north we went, the longer the days were, the sky remaining light well into the time it would have been dark at home. I walked to the end of the building, where there was a bench. The deck wrapped around to the side and I heard muffled voices coming from that direction. I was tempted to peek around the corner to see who was meeting away from the eyes of other visitors, but I didn’t have to. A male voice was followed by the sound of female whimpering, and Maeve Pinckney appeared, a handkerchief to her face. I started to say hello, but she glanced at me with nervous eyes and ran down the steps in the direction of the hotel.
I expected to see her husband follow, but the man who emerged from the side of the building was not Junior Pinckney. It was Winston Rendell.
Chapter Ten
“Enjoy your evening at the ranch?” Detective Marshall asked as I boarded the Whistler Northwind for the final portion of our three-day journey, the longest leg that would culminate at Prince George.
“Yes,” I said, “especially the horse-whispering demonstration this morning.”
“And what is that?” he asked.
“Did you see the film
The Horse Whisperer
?”
“Afraid I didn’t.”
I explained how a young female ranch hand at Hills Ranch had demonstrated that morning how she controlled her horse through body language and the movements of a small whip she carried, never touching the horse with it but cueing the animal by the various positions in which she held it, aided by subtle verbal sounds.
“Would it work on people?” he asked, a glint in his eye.
“I doubt it.”
I watched him go up the aisle and disappear into the bar car. Junior Pinckney, his baseball hat on backwards, had already taken his position at the half-open door in the vestibule when I wandered through on my way into the dining car. I wanted some time to think undisturbed and the dining car was usually empty, likely the reason Winston Rendell conducted his telephone calls in there.
Rendell wasn’t there, but Benjamin was just leaving. He glared at me. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Blevin. The cops say he was poisoned. Now they’re harassing my mother.”
“I’m sorry about your mother, Benjamin, but I’m not to blame for the truth of your stepfather’s death.”
“Yeah, right.” He stomped past me, nearly knocking me over.
In the dining car, Jenna and Karl were setting the tables, distributing the fresh flowers that graced every meal. I sat at a table and moved my seat back so as not to disturb the tableware they had so carefully arranged. “Am I all right over here?” I asked.
“You’re just fine,” Jenna called out as she carried an empty tray from the car.
“Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher,” Karl said, placing a small vase of baby carnations on the table. He was dressed in his kitchen whites, his black hair pulled into a ponytail, white kerchief tied in back, riding low on his brow. Another kerchief, this one red, was tied around his neck.
I stared at him, and he smiled. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Good morning, Karl. Please excuse my rudeness. For a moment there, you looked familiar to me, but I can’t place where I may have seen you before.”
“No apologies necessary,” he said, pushing up his wire-rimmed spectacles where they had slid down the bridge of his narrow nose. “I must have that kind of face. People have told me that before.”
I noticed he wasn’t quite as young as I’d first supposed. His tanned face was unlined, but his neck and hands were those of an older man.
Kitchen work takes quite a toll,
I thought wryly. Aloud, I said: “Can you spare a moment to talk with me?”
“Certainly. How may I be of assistance? Would you like some coffee, a snack?”
“No, thank you. I was hoping to ask you about Alvin Blevin.”
A dark look passed over his face and then his features relaxed back into the bland expression he always wore. “Terrible tragedy,” he said. “That detective was talking to us last night. All the staff are really upset.”
“It must be very difficult, especially for Callie.”
“Yeah. Jenna, too. I think she might’ve had a crush on him.”
“Surely Mr. Blevin wouldn’t have encouraged that.”
“Why not? She’s cute.”
I’d noticed that Jenna seemed very subdued following Blevin’s death, but I’d suspected that she was worrying about Benjamin. It hadn’t occurred to me that she might have been mourning Blevin. Now I wondered if his alleged womanizing had extended to a woman young enough to be his daughter.
“Karl, you brought in two fresh bottles of vodka when you came to the club car that day.”
“I see where you’re going with this, Mrs. Fletcher. The Mountie asked about that, too. But they were sealed. Callie opened them at the bar.”
“Did you see anyone drop anything into Mr. Blevin’s drink?”
He shook his head.
“Who might have had an opportunity to handle his glass?” I asked.
“Gee, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said in a tone that struck me as ironic. “You were there. It was a pretty crowded party. His drink got passed around to several hands before it landed on my tray. In fact, it was originally supposed to be for you, wasn’t it?”
That was true. And I remembered Junior passing the glass, and Hank nearly spilling it as he pushed through the crowd. Also, after Benjamin had brought him another Bloody Mary, Blevin had left one of the drinks on a table where anyone could have dropped in the poison. This line of questioning was not going to produce anything helpful. I tried another.