Walk Through the Valley (Psalm 23 Mysteries) (23 page)

As they entered the dining room he glanced around, noting the other hotel guests present. One table held a young family with a small girl who was asleep, her head resting on a stuffed bear. He continued to look around and winced slightly when he saw Elisa at one of the tables. Fortunately she was engrossed in reading something. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Milt’s death with her some more. He almost turned around and walked out, but Traci eagerly pulled him toward a table before he could.

No sooner had they sat down than Elisa made a beeline for them. She sat down opposite Mark and leaned across the table. “The police are here. Apparently Milt did die from ingesting a peanut product. They’re with the manager and the head chef in the kitchen right now.”

Mark groaned. That was almost certainly going to delay their own meal and he was starving. He turned and looked at Traci who was staring wide-eyed at the writer.

“Elisa, this is my wife, Traci. Traci, this is Elisa.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Elisa said, shaking Traci’s hand.

“I love your books,” Traci said.

“I think that might be an understatement,” Mark said.

“It’s always good to meet a fan,” Elisa said with a smile.

Mark’s stomach rumbled loudly.

“I’m starving, too,” Traci said.

“Me three. I’ve been here for half an hour, but with all that’s going on in the kitchen, I don’t know how long before we’ll see food,” Elisa said, echoing Mark’s own fears.

His stomach growled again.

“Okay, that does it. We have to get to the bottom of this so we can eat,” he said, standing up.

He leaned down and kissed Traci. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Go get ‘em,” she said with a grin.

Mark moved toward the kitchen with Elisa beside him. “It’s nice that your wife is so supportive,” she said.

“She’s beyond supportive.”

In the kitchen they found Nina, the manager, one of the policemen from the other day, and the head chef. It looked like any other kitchen staff had vacated the premises for the duration of the inspection.

“As you can see, there is nothing here,” the chef said, closing a refrigerator.

The manager and the policeman both nodded in Mark and Elisa’s direction.

“It has to have come from here,” Nina fumed. “My husband was killed by your negligence.”

“Madam, I can assure you, we had nothing to do with it,” the chef said.

“Nina, I thought you were convinced that he was murdered by one of his enemies from home?” Mark said.

She hesitated for a moment and Mark realized she was trying to decide which story to stick with. Confusion and fear warred briefly in her eyes and he knew in an instant that Elisa was right. Nina had killed her husband.

“Since he likely died within an hour of consuming the peanut product, the only people who could have killed your husband were the ones that had access to his food or drink at breakfast,” Mark said.

She nodded slowly, clearly ready to jump on whatever theory he presented.

“If there are no peanut containing products in this kitchen, then we can rightly deduce that whoever had the peanut product added it to his food or drink knowing that he had the allergy and with the full intent of killing him.”

“We have gone through the kitchen trash with the police. No one has disposed of anything there,” the manager said.

“Which means that whoever did it took the evidence with them for disposal at some other place at some other time,” Mark said.

“That would follow,” the police officer said.

“And I’m guessing that person didn’t realize that the kitchen had been so thoroughly prepped to be peanut free. They thought that surely there would be something, even a bit of peanut oil, that would be found and his death would be labeled an unfortunate accident.”

He noticed that when he said the words “peanut oil” Nina turned noticeably paler.

“Are you saying one of his enemies followed him here and poisoned him?” she asked.

“No. I’m saying that one of his enemies arrived with him here and poisoned him,” Mark said, staring meaningfully at her.

“Can you prove what you are saying?” the policeman asked.

“I think I just might be able to prove that Nina killed her husband, yes.”

“That’s a lie!” she shrieked, lunging toward him.

The manager grabbed her and pulled her back.

“How can you prove it?” the policeman asked.

“Have you allowed her to remove anything from the room where she was staying with Milt?”

“Not a thing. We sealed and locked the room.”

“And we provided her with a few clothes and other such items from our store and moved her to a different room,” the manager added.

“Then if I’m right, all the evidence we need should still be in her old room.”

Nina began yelling and sputtering, growing more incoherent by the second. Mark only understood snatches of what she was saying such as “my property” and “sue the hotel”. She was so out of control that he knew he had to be right.

Together they exited the back door of the kitchen and made their way to the hut where Milt had died. The policeman held on to Nina’s arm the entire way. Once there, he passed the key to the manager who opened the padlock on the door.

They all made their way inside and spread out through the room. “In the bathroom you will find Nina’s toiletries bag. There are a couple of small vials of perfume. I believe one of those actually contains peanut oil,” Mark said.

The policeman handed Nina over to the manager who put a hand on her arm. The man then entered the bathroom and returned with the bag in question. He pulled out the first vial, sniffed it, then put it back. The second one was just over half empty and he opened the top of it and sniffed. He then placed his finger over the top and tilted a little of the liquid inside onto it. He sniffed it again and then touched it to the tip of his tongue.

“Peanut oil,” he confirmed.

Nina visibly deflated.

“Why did she not throw this out?”

“She couldn’t throw it in the trash in here because it would be noticeable. I’m guessing the reason she didn’t dispose of it when she went to the beach and waited for him to die was just in case she needed to give him a second dose. He had an epinephrine pen in his things, but I’m guessing she was counting on him not being able to use it. Although, she might have tampered with it as well.”

Mark walked into the bathroom and returned with the package in question. He nodded his head slowly. “Yes, look. It’s expired by a few months. I’m guessing he wasn’t the kind of man to risk his health given that he called months in advance to discuss the allergy with the manager. I’d be willing to bet she held on to this expired one and when the time came to get ready for the trip she swapped it out for a new one that he had, ensuring that even if he managed to use the pen it wouldn’t save him.”

“So, you’ve been planning to kill him for months?” the policeman asked.

“No! I just. I don’t know why I kept that old one. I found the airline tickets to Tahiti last week. He was taking some other woman. I pretended that I hadn’t seen the name on the second ticket. He wasn’t willing to admit to the affair so he took me on the trip instead.”

“That’s why he called to change the flowers he wanted in the room so last minute,” the manager said.

“I knew he was going to dump me, just like he did his ex-wife.”

Elisa smiled at Mark. He nodded his head. She had called it.

“After all I did for that man! How could he?”

Nina dissolved into bitter sobs.

“On that note, I think our work here is done,” Mark said. He turned to the manager. “Is the kitchen back open for business?”

The man nodded. “I’ll tell the chef right away. Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

He turned and left and Elisa went with him. As soon as they were out of earshot he said, “You were right about Nina.”

“Good catch on the perfume vial with peanut oil,” she said.

“Once I was totally on board with her being the killer, it all snapped into place. I’m just glad she wasn’t a very good actress.”

“Yeah, she wasn’t very convincing in the part of grieving widow.”

“No, and the fact that she kept vacillating between blaming mysterious enemies and the kitchen staff just raised alarms.”

“She probably thought she was covering her bases. If she’d never brought up the whole idea that he had been murdered this would almost certainly have gone down as an unfortunate accident even when the police couldn’t find any peanut products in the kitchen.”

“Poor old Milt. He made a lot of bad choices.”

“He married her for starters,” Elisa said.

“And then he cheated on her. That was just asking for trouble,” Mark added. “At least that’s behind us now and we can enjoy the rest of our vacations. I didn’t like the fact that work seemed to follow me here.”

“I didn’t mind so much. Solving mysteries has actually been a lifesaver for me,” Elisa admitted.

“So, you do this often?” Mark asked, surprised.

She nodded. “I have a police officer friend in Hawaii. That’s where I live most of the time. His name is Kapono.”

Mark came to a halt. “You don’t happen to know a police captain on Oahu, first name William?”

“Of course I do,” she said with a cheery smile.

“Oh, you’re the one,” Mark said. When Jeremiah had been in Honolulu trying to find Cindy after she’d been kidnapped, his friend William had told him that he had his own version of Cindy, a female writer who was constantly finding dead bodies.

“I take it you’ve heard of me?”

“Yup.”

He didn’t bother enlightening her further. They had made it back to the dining room and Traci lit up when she saw them.

“Everything solved?”

“It was the wife,” Elisa said.

“With the peanut oil,” Mark added.

“Here in the dining room,” Elisa concluded cheerfully.

Traci laughed and shook her head. “You two actually manage to make murder sound whimsical.”

“One does try,” Elisa said with a smile. “You must come by my room later, by the way. I have a copy of my new book which is coming out next month. I want to give it to you.”

“For me?” Traci gasped in delight.

“Yes. Consider it a thank you for letting me borrow your husband for crime solving.”

“Traci is the only reason I participated,” Mark said.

His stomach growled.

“Okay, that and I was hungry.”

Cindy had gone briefly back to her brother’s room to let her dad know everything was relatively okay after their abrupt departure. She finally returned to Lisa’s room where Jeremiah was still trying to talk some sense into her. When she walked in and closed the door behind her Lisa turned red rimmed eyes to her.

“Please you have to help me. Kyle can never know about this,” Lisa begged.

“This is the kind of thing you needed to come clean with Kyle about before the two of you became serious,” Jeremiah said. He stared at Cindy. “He needs to know what he’s getting himself into before he can make an informed choice.”

“Kyle won’t understand!”

“Maybe he will,” Cindy said, staring back at Jeremiah. “Who knows, maybe he even suspected all along that there were things about your past that were dark, that you didn’t want to share.”

“Not Kyle. He’s too sweet and naïve. He sees the good in everything and never the bad.”

Jeremiah gave Cindy a slight smile and she smiled back. That was one thing she and her brother didn’t have in common. She always saw the danger, the dark and scary things that could happen. It was Jeremiah who had helped her learn that just because you saw those things it didn’t mean you could bury your head in the sand and hide from life. Life was to be embraced in all its terrifying, unpredictable glory.

“I just wanted to give people beautiful things,” Lisa said, more tears beginning to fall.

“We understand, Lisa, but you have to understand that there are no more choices here, no moves to be made except one,” Cindy said. “If you don’t go to the police they’ll kill you.”

“Or, more likely at this point, they’ll kill Kyle to send you a message,” Jeremiah said.

Lisa began crying harder and Cindy felt a twisting knot in her stomach because she knew Jeremiah was right.

19

There was a knock on the door and a minute later Detective Sanders came in.

“What is she doing here?” Lisa asked, wiping her eyes.

“I called her while Jeremiah was dealing with the two thugs,” Cindy said.

“I got here as fast as I could.”

“I don’t want to talk to her,” Lisa said, sounding like a churlish child.

“We’ve gone way past what you do and don’t want,” Cindy said, hardening her voice. “That happened the moment you involved my brother. It’s time to think of someone else’s needs, someone else’s future.”