Steamed to Death (7 page)

“And?” Sienna asked.

Alice’s eyes glowed like diamonds. “You are not going to believe this!”

Gigi wanted to scream. Whatever Alice had to say, she wished she’d get on with it.

“Joe told me . . .” Alice lowered her voice and looked toward the front window of the Book Nook. The only thing visible through the streaks of rain was the hazy outline of Declan’s Grille across the street.

Alice took a deep breath. “Apparently the police have reason to suspect that Felicity’s death wasn’t an accident,” she finished triumphantly.

“That’s what Mertz told me,” Gigi said.

Alice looked deflated. She reached for a tea bag and added hot water to her mug, her face averted.

“Did he tell you why they suspect—”

Alice was already shaking her head. “I don’t think he knew himself. He only knew this much by, you know, keeping his ear to the ground, so to speak.” Alice smiled proudly. “He did say that there was something on the scene that had convinced Detective Mertz.”

“I wonder what that was.” Sienna glanced from Alice to Gigi. “I know Anja, Felicity’s housekeeper, would be very relieved if it’s proven Felicity’s death wasn’t a suicide. On the other hand, murder isn’t much of an alternative.”

Gigi was quiet. An idea was already percolating in her mind. Winchel had asked her to stay on for a bit and provide meals and ultimately a luncheon after Felicity’s funeral. Anja also needed help in the kitchen since the police had asked Winchel’s houseguests to stay in the area for a few days, and Winchel had insisted they stay with him. Besides, Hector’s Plumbing and Heating still hadn’t come up with the appropriate piece of kitchen pipe, so Gigi was glad of the offer.

Sienna regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Okay, give. What’s up? You’ve got that look.”

“What look?” Gigi asked innocently.

“The look. The one you get when you’re about to suggest we do something insane like break into someone’s porch for evidence.”

“I had no choice,” Gigi protested.

“Well, whatever it is, we can’t let you do it alone.”

• • •

Gigi spent the rest of the morning working on some recipes for Branston Foods. The good news was that she would serve the finished products to Winchel and the rest of Felicity’s houseguests for lunch.

Anja was serving the meal, and everyone was in the dining room waiting to eat, when Gigi got out her cell and called Sienna and Alice. She reached Alice first and whispered into the phone, “The coast is clear,” before hanging up.

She dialed Sienna and went through the same scenario. Then she hovered near the back door until they arrived.

“Oh, that rain refuses to let up,” Alice declared.

“Sssh,” Gigi and Sienna said in unison.

Alice’s hand flew to her mouth. “Sorry.”

“We can go straight upstairs.” Gigi pointed to the back stairs, which went from the mudroom by the back door up to the second and third floors.

“This is so exciting,” Alice said, and they shushed her again.

They got to the door of Felicity’s bedroom, and Alice suddenly came to a halt. “I . . . I’m not sure I want to go in there.” She swiped a hand across her eyes. “It was so . . . horrible, seeing that poor woman like that.”

“Then you can stand watch,” Sienna said decisively.

“Well, all right, I guess I’ll go with you,” Alice said, obviously not wanting to be left out.

They tiptoed across the acres of ultra-plush carpeting toward the master bath. Alice’s head swiveled this way and that. “I didn’t really get a chance to look around before. I was too upset. This is some setup, don’t you think?” She plunged her hand into the cashmere throw that was casually draped across a rose-colored chaise longue.

“It’s a little fancy for my taste.” Sienna crossed the room quickly.

Gigi realized she couldn’t even begin to imagine living in a room like this, so there was no point in thinking about it. The bedroom in her little cottage was perfect as far as she was concerned—small but homey and comfortable.

“Is this where it happened?” Sienna stood at the entrance to the bathroom.

Despite her earlier attack of nerves, Alice peered over Sienna’s shoulder eagerly. Gigi was the only one holding back. Sienna opened the sauna door and peered in. The bench inside was large enough for several people. Gigi had never seen a sauna before, but this one looked as if everything was in order.

“Do you think it malfunctioned somehow?” Gigi examined the knobs and dials that she supposed set the temperature and the time.

“But that would make it an accident, and the police don’t think it was for some reason.”

“True.”

Sienna pushed the door to the sauna closed and sighed in defeat. “I can’t imagine what the police saw in here, can you?”

Alice shook her head, and Gigi was about to do the same when she stopped abruptly. She moved closer to the sauna door and examined it carefully, running her fingers across the smooth wooden finish.

“I think I know what they saw,” she said, straightening up with a look of triumph on her face.

“What? Don’t keep us in suspense,” Sienna demanded.

“See that?” Gigi ran her hand across the wooden door again.

“What?” Alice adjusted her glasses on her nose. “I don’t see anything.”

“Feel it,” Gigi suggested.

Alice delicately brushed her fingertips across the sauna door. “Feels like it’s scratched.”

“Exactly!” Gigi said.

Sienna shrugged. “So what?”

“So,” Gigi explained, “I think someone might have put something in front of the door. To block it.”

Alice’s hand flew to her mouth. “Then it was murder,” she said, her blue eyes round with shock.

“What do you think they used?” Sienna looked around the bathroom. “It had to have been something close at hand.”

Gigi nodded. “My best guess would be a chair of some sort.” She gestured toward the sauna door. “Wedged under the handle. Hardly foolproof, but if Felicity panicked . . .”

“But when I found Felicity”—Alice gulped hard, and her face blanched white—“she was already half out of the sauna.”

“The killer must have hung around and removed the chair thinking the police would be none the wiser.” Gigi wandered into the bedroom, and the other two followed. “It may have even been the killer who opened the sauna door to make it look as if Felicity tried to get out.”

Gigi looked around the room. It didn’t lack for chairs—plump chairs, straight chairs, reclining chairs. Any one of them could have been the one the murderer used. She wondered if there might be some sort of mark on the back, and began examining them one by one. Nothing.

She glanced at a chair in the corner that had an almost abandoned look, as if no one ever sat in it. Something caught her eye. Maybe . . . She moved around the room examining the other pieces of furniture.

“Well, Anja certainly isn’t much of a housekeeper,” Gigi declared suddenly. “But I think I’ve found our chair.”

She was rewarded by the dumbfounded looks on the faces of Sienna and Alice.

“This is going to be good.” Sienna sat down on the edge of the bed and put a hand to her back.

“How on earth?” Alice sputtered.

“If you look around”—Gigi waved a hand toward the furniture in the room—“you’ll see that Anja, or whoever does the housekeeping, is in the habit of vacuuming around the bed, chairs and so forth.”

“My mother always taught me to move everything to one side and do a decent job.
A job worth doing is a job worth doing well
,” Alice quoted.

Gigi pointed at the carpet. “You can see that things haven’t been moved. The carpet is so thick, the feet of all the furniture have left indentations in the pile. If,” she added, feeling more like Miss Jane Marple by the minute, “the housekeeper moved them regularly, the marks would not be so distinct.”

Gigi tilted the chaise longue slightly so they could see the deep well left in the thick rug.

“But this chair”—Gigi walked toward the chair orphaned in the corner—“is not in its exact former location. You can see the original craterous dents in the carpet, but the legs of the chair don’t match up. They’ve begun creating a second set of marks in the pile.”

“So the chair was moved!” Alice said, wide-eyed.

“It would seem so,” Gigi said. “It also”—she gestured toward the chair back—“looks to be about the right height to have made that scratch on the sauna door.”

Sienna slid off the bed and went over to examine the chair. “It’s wood on back,” she said, peering behind it. “And there are metal grommets along the top.”

“Yup,” Gigi replied. “Someone used that chair to bar the sauna door.” She looked at Alice and Sienna and shivered.

“That’s terrible,” Alice said, plunking down into the chaise and swinging her legs up. “Who would do such a thing?”

Gigi glanced at Alice and frowned. “Maybe we ought to get—” She cut off abruptly when a noise made the three of them swivel toward the door.

“Someone’s coming!”

Chapter 6

Alice let out a tiny shriek and jumped up from the chaise. “Oh no, we’re busted.”

The sound of footsteps echoed on the wooden back stairs.

“Quick”—Gigi made a sweeping gesture with her arm—“let’s hide in the bathroom. At least we won’t be visible from the open bedroom door.”

Together they beat a retreat toward the bathroom. Sienna promptly sat down on the wooden bench inside the sauna.

“I don’t know how you can go in there.” Alice shivered.

“I have no choice.” Sienna stuck her legs out in front of her. “My feet are killing me.”

She was wearing a tunic-length sweater and black leggings, and the front of her top was stretched as far as it could go.

“Another ten days.” She sighed. “Although I’ve been having contractions on and off, so perhaps it will be early.”

“Sssh.” Gigi peeked around the edge of the door.

“Is someone coming?” Alice whispered, drawing back farther into the bathroom.

“It’s Derek,” Gigi said. She pulled her head back in suddenly and flattened herself against the wall behind the door.

“What’s he doing?” Alice whispered.

Gigi shrugged.

They could hear him moving about in Felicity’s room, opening and closing closet doors and drawers.

Very cautiously, Gigi peeked around the edge of the door.

Derek had his back to her. Felicity’s jewelry box was sprawled open on her dresser, and Derek was sifting through the contents one by one, his dark head bent over the task. Gigi watched as he held up two gold chains, palmed them, then stuffed them into the pocket of his jeans.

Gigi had to put her hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp of outrage. She knew that Derek sometimes raided Felicity’s purse for a few dollars in cash, but this was much worse—stealing from the dead.

“What’s going on?” Alice hissed when she saw the look on Gigi’s face.

Gigi shook her head and peeked around the door again. Derek had replaced the other items in the jewelry box and was putting it back inside Felicity’s lingerie drawer. Finally, he eased the drawer closed and sauntered out of the room, whistling softly under his breath.

Gigi felt steam gathering in her head and let out a huge breath. “Well!”

“Well, what?” Alice asked eagerly.

Sienna stopped rotating her ankles and looked at Gigi expectantly.

“That was Derek!” Gigi’s fists clenched involuntarily. “He stole some pieces from Felicity’s jewelry box.”

Alice blew out a big breath, and her bangs flopped up and down. “Of all the nerve!”

“Felicity regularly complained about his taking money from her wallet.” Sienna eased her way off the sauna bench with a hand to her back. “But I got the impression that she didn’t really mind. She rather overindulged him in my opinion.”

Alice nodded. “Trying to make up to him for not being his real mother.”

“What happened to his mother?” Gigi had opened the mirrored medicine cabinet and was staring in awe at the contents. It looked like the cosmetics counter at Macy’s.

“According to Felicity, she was an incredibly selfish, high-powered surgeon who ran off to join Doctors Without Borders and serve the underprivileged in darkest Africa.” Sienna’s mouth curved into a smile. “Instead of staying in New York and making millions of dollars performing plastic surgery on the rich and famous.”

“In a way, it was a bit selfish of her not to think of her son,” Alice put in.

“True.” Sienna stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “But I gather Felicity has been trying to make it up to him ever since.” She glanced toward the door. “Is the coast clear?”

Gigi peered into the now empty bedroom. “Looks good.”

“That was close,” Alice said as they dispersed into the hall.

“Yes, but it was certainly worth it,” Gigi said. “We now know why the police think foul play was involved, and I’m inclined to agree with them.”

Alice led the way down the dark, twisting back stairs, one hand on the railing, the other trailing against the wall.

“The killer must have turned up the temperature, too,” Sienna said, feeling her way carefully down the narrow stairs. “There was this Russian fellow I remember reading about. He was in some sort of contest to see who could stay in this dreadfully hot sauna the longest. They turned the temperature up to two hundred thirty degrees. He lasted six minutes.”

“What do you mean?” Alice said, stopping abruptly on the steps.

“He died. And his fellow contestant was seriously injured.”

“Well then, I guess we need to find out who blocked the sauna
and
tampered with the settings,” Alice said.

“Sure,” Gigi agreed. “Easy peasy.”

• • •

Gigi straightened up a final few things in the kitchen. She could hear voices coming from the dining room and the sounds of knives and forks on plates. Laughter mingled with the murmur of chatter. Gigi crossed her fingers. She hoped they liked the dishes she had prepared. With Felicity gone—the thought still gave her pause—she would have to line up some new clients soon. Fortunately there were several people on her waiting list. She would call them right away.

“Anything I can do to help?” Alice had one arm in her jacket sleeve.

“Not really.” Gigi wrung out the dishrag and draped it over the faucet to dry. “Anja is taking care of cleaning up the lunch dishes.”