Death of a Batty Genius (Stormy Day Mystery #3) (29 page)

Benji leaned in and took the slightly-squashed sandwiches, his movements awkward and jerky.

“You’re still a cheater,” Butch said calmly. “I saw it on one of those talk shows. It’s called an emotional affair. People can get involved without even being in the same city. Say what you want to your friends, but I know that every time you had your phone in your hand, you were sending a message to Franco or checking to see if he’d sent one to you.”

Marie’s cheeks flushed. She said, “Benji, would you please inform my husband that if he had done more than yawn whenever I wanted to talk to him, I wouldn’t have had to pour my heart out to a friend. And that’s all Franco was. A friend.”

Butch nodded slowly. “Then who did you have the top floor honeymoon suite set up for? You said the mattress hadn’t shown up yet, but I checked the room on my rounds Monday morning. There was a bed in the room, all made up with our best linens. The pillow smelled of your perfume.”

Everyone froze in silence. I glanced over at Jessica with an I-knew-it look.

Christopher muttered under his breath, “This is going to get ugly.”

Dion squared up his chest to Butch and said, “You thought something was going on between Marie and Franco. That’s what happened, right? Then you decided to even the score, using my sweet little sister.”

Butch snorted. “Your little sister isn’t that sweet. She threw herself at me, with Franco right next to her in the bed. If he’d woken up, he would have found himself in the middle of an unwanted threesome.”

Dion’s nostrils flared. His plate shook in his hand. He didn’t take his eyes off Butch. “You’d better shut your mouth, baldie, or I’ll shut it for you.”

“Is that so?”

Butch glowered at Dion until he backed down, muttering, “Not worth it.” He walked away from Butch, running his free hand through his black curls.

Butch turned to Marie. “Well? No explanation for what you had planned with the honeymoon suite?”

Benji said, “Maybe it was for the two of you.” He smiled crookedly and cracked open another can of cola. He seemed to be enjoying the chaos.

Marie jerked her head toward us, her nose high in the air. Stiffly, she said, “Jessica, could I trouble you for some help with the sandwich trays?”

Jessica nodded and ran to help Marie. They set out even more trays, these ones containing chopped vegetables and miniature tarts.

I caught a whiff of the food and realized I was hungry.

Christopher and I visited the pool-table buffet to gather some food. We took our plates over to the seating by the karaoke stage. The tables were smaller than those in the dining room, meant to hold only a drink or two, but were more than big enough for our lunch-sized plates and finger food.

We watched as Butch followed his wife around. “Marie, I don’t blame you for any of this. Listen, I know you don’t want to be in the same room as me, but we really need to talk. I know things haven’t been great between us lately, but I don’t really believe you’re a cheater. We should talk. In private.”

She snapped, “Whatever you need to say, you can share it in front of our friends.” She looked around the room, stopping on Christopher. “And in front of your family.”

Butch pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his bald head as he eyed us.

I said to Christopher, “I think having you here is making things worse for your cousin.”

“That’s no good.” Christopher got up and went to his cousin’s side. He put his arm around Butch’s shoulders in a supportive gesture. “Butch, you and I both know the Fairchild method of dealing with difficult emotions is to repress them, to shove them down with the help of a martini or two. But if you have something to get off your chest, I’m right here with you. I’m not judging you.”

Butch kept mopping his forehead. A minute passed, then he asked, “Do you guys know if Franco had any sort of medical condition? Maybe a heart thing?”

“He did go to the doctor a lot,” Dion answered. “There was his gluten issue, which made him feel sluggish. Now that I think about it, he complained about his heart racing sometimes.”

“His heart?” Butch shrugged off Christopher’s arm and started pacing. “This is bad,” he said. “So bad.”

Benji cleared his throat. “Attention, everyone.” He coughed three times. “Butch, I need to put you out of your misery.”

Butch raised his eyebrows. “I don’t like the sound of being put out of my misery.” He tucked his handkerchief away and sat on the beat-up sofa at the edge of the room. “I appreciate your concern, but I need to be forthright about a few things.”

Benji said, “You don’t have to tell them, Butch. I will.” He pulled something from his pocket and tossed it into his mouth, followed by a swig of cola. He burped.

Dion gave his friend a sideways look. “You okay, dude? What are those pills you’re popping?”

“Medicine,” Benji said with a hand wave. His attention flicked briefly to me, and the corner of his mouth quirked up. Whatever he was taking, he’d had it hidden somewhere other than in his bathroom.

Benji addressed the group. “Guys, it’s my fault Franco died. I brought the drugs to the resort. I’m going to tell the police everything, and I’m going to be abundantly clear it was all my fault, no matter what.”

Dion said, “Really?”

Marie asked, “What drugs? Do you mean that bag of powdered sugar? Stop joking around, Benji. This isn’t the time for your bizarre sense of humor.”

“I’m not joking.” Benji hung his head. “None of you should be friends with me. I don’t even deserve to be alive.

Marie ran to Benji and wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t say that. Even if you did bring drugs up here, you would never force Franco to take them. Franco never did anything that wasn’t his idea.”

Dion snorted. “You can say that again.”

Benji peeled Marie’s arms off him and pushed her away. “Don’t you understand? I’m the one who brought the TDX here, to the lodge. I was going to use it to kill myself.” His face reddened. “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” Marie said. “Why are you talking crazy? You can’t kill yourself. There are only three of us left, and I can’t bear to lose another dear friend.”

I rose from my chair and raised my hand. “Excuse me. I have a question. Benji, you said that bag was sugar, for a joke, and now you’re saying it was TDX? Isn’t that the made-up drug from those sci-fi books you guys read, about Planet Toad-something?”

Benji took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Planet Toadonx.” He gave the glasses a quick smear with the edge of his dark brown jacket, then put them back on. “Toadanhydrotetrodotoxin, or TDX, is extracted from the venom of animals on Planet Toadonx. The Toadonians use it for rituals and vision quests, as well as for euthanizing their terminally ill.”

“And you had a bag of this drug?”

Benji nodded. “The Toadonian elders said humans couldn’t be trusted, and I fear they were right.”

I exchanged looks with Jessica, then Christopher. Both were aghast at Benji’s apparent break from reality.

Marie took Benji’s hand and gently led him to a chair. “I’m going to get you some water,” she said softly.

Dion took a seat near his friend and watched him warily. “Benji, are there any Toadonians in this room right now?”

Butch got up from the sofa, fuming. “This is ridiculous! Your friend has clearly lost his mind, and you’re all humoring him.” He went to the end of the buffet table, to the whiskey, and proceeded to pour and consume three amber shots in a row.

“Who’s next?” Butch asked as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Plenty of whiskey for everyone. Let’s get this wake started.”

Christopher raised his hand, then looked around at the shocked faces in the room and lowered it. He rejoined me at our table near the karaoke stage.

Benji said, “I’m feeling much better now, I swear. When I woke up this morning and found I wasn’t in a Toadonx hell dimension, I realized that dying was no solution. I wanted to live. I wanted to see the sunrise, the dawn of a new day.”

Christopher said under his breath, “That does explain Benji running around this morning crowing like a rooster.”

Marie took away Benji’s empty cola can and handed him a glass of water. “Even if Franco did get some of your drugs from that planet, he wouldn’t eat a whole bag of it and then fall off the side of a mountain.”

Benji sipped the water. “Actually, if he’d ingested the entire bag, he would have been violently ill. His body would have rejected the chemicals before they could take effect.”

Jessica, who’d been hovering near the food trays, asked Benji, “Was it TDX in the Rainforest Delight that made me think I was a squirrel?”

He looked at her as though he couldn’t believe she was asking such an obvious question. “It would appear so,” he said in a patronizing tone.

She caught my eye and raised her eyebrows. I nodded to let her know I was on the same page. Whatever substance was in the smoothie mix, he’d been testing it, as well as other chemicals, on himself.

Butch, who’d been pacing near the couch, stopped and pointed at Benji. “That’s it! Benji, you poisoned Franco. You slipped it to him that first night. It didn’t start to take effect until later, and…” He started pacing again, shaking his head. “Now you’re putting on this act, about being crazy, so you can plead insanity. This is so devious. This is exactly what a genius would do.”

Benji said plainly, “You’re sounding paranoid, Butch.”

Butch pointed at Benji and growled, “I’m going to get some rope and tie you up before you hurt anyone else.”

Marie walked up behind Butch and began punching his back. She was tiny compared to him, and looked like a mouse trying to dismantle a mountain, but she kept at it, raining down blows on his broad shoulders and back.

“You leave Benji alone!”

Butch turned around and tried to catch her wrists, but she was determined. He let his arms drop to his sides and allowed himself to be used as a punching bag.

When she had tired, and the punches slowed down, he said, “Marie, I accept that you may never forgive me. But when we took our marriage vows, I swore I would protect you. If one of your friends is a crazy, pill-popping madman, I need to protect you.”

Marie spat, “And who’s going to protect me from you? Other than Della, you’re the one who saw Franco last. You said he was drunk when you helped him back to his room at three in the morning, when you were doing your rounds. But was he? Was he drunk? Or was he already dead?”

Butch recoiled. “You think I killed Franco?” He looked around the room at the rest of us. “Is that what the rest of you think?”

Dion frowned and crossed his arms. “Butch, she does have a point. You had a motive to get rid of Franco. You were jealous of the emotional affair he was having with your wife. Maybe you should sit down. Maybe all of us should calm down and get our stories straight before the police show up.”

Butch said, “Get our stories straight?” He made eye contact with me. “Are you hearing this? Franco’s former business partner, the one who stands to take over the entire business now that his partner is deceased, wants us to
get our stories straight
. Does that seem suspicious to anyone?”

I kept my expression neutral and didn’t answer. Butch was right, though. It did seem suspicious for Dion to be talking about getting our stories straight, and he did stand to benefit from Franco’s death.

The attention of the room shifted to Dion. The rings of sweat on the armpits of his dark purple shirt seemed to be growing.

Dion pointed at Marie. “She tried to sleep with Franco! That’s why she had the honeymoon suite set up. He told me on Sunday night, in the float tank room.”

Butch said, “I knew it!”

Marie said, “Liar! Dion, stop trying to distract everyone! What’s your insurance policy on the pub like? What do you stand to gain?”

Dion said, “We only have basic insurance on the building, not on each other. We’re debt-free, because we bought it outright using the funds from the patent on that ski clasp we invented.” He shook his head. “Why am I on trial? Marie, just admit that you tried to seduce Franco on our first night here.”

She glared at him, her eyes piercing, her face tight and hard under the severe bun. “You don’t know anything.”

Dion pivoted and gave Jessica a pleading look. “You remember. You were there when Franco told me all about it in the float tank room. He was laughing about the bondage-style underwear she had on, but he did say she had a hot little body.”

Marie looked as though she might faint. “He did?”

She looked to Jessica for confirmation, as did everyone else, including me.

“Tell them,” Dion said.

Jessica, who looked as if she wanted to run out of the damp-smelling cave room, grasped the edge of the pool table to steady herself. She accidentally pulled the cloth and made the chafing dishes chatter.

“I didn’t hear anything but muffled voices,” she said. “Those tanks are made to block out sound.”

Dion narrowed his eyes and scanned the room, giving everyone a withering look. “Everyone’s got great hearing when they want it. Butch, Marie, if you think I killed Franco, say it to my face. I loved that man. He was like a brother to me.”

“I loved him, too,” Marie said. “As a friend,” she quickly added. “Maybe there were a few minutes of confusion, but only because I’ve felt so distanced from everyone else lately. I would never hurt Franco.” Her expression grew cold. “But I wouldn’t hesitate to take revenge on any person who did.”

“Me, too,” Dion said.

Benji whimpered, “Please, just make it fast.”

Dion and Marie gathered around Benji. “We know you didn’t do anything,” Marie said. “You loved Franco as much as we did.”

Benji said, “He was my best friend.”

They hugged, and their voices jumbled together while they gushed about how much they loved Franco. The three of them broke down as though they were in a contest to see who could grieve the loudest.

Butch walked up behind Marie and tried to get in on the group hug. She whipped her head back and cracked him in the face with the back of her skull. She got him right in the nose, and hard.

He spat her brown hairs out of his mouth and went down, howling, to his knees. Blood trickled from between his fingers.