“If it’s not shut down as the scene of a deadly crime,” Jemma added.
I tried to change the subject as I ran a hand along the cement wall. “I have no idea how much farther this tunnel goes, but maybe we could… um… review what we know so far about Mr. Finch’s death.”
“Good idea,” Jemma said, obviously more comfortable discussing the business of murder rather than more personalthings, which was fine since the former was currently more important.
“Okay,” I started. “So Mrs. Finch last saw her husband in their apartment drinking whiskey around five p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. Then, she came to see the contestants, chat, and make an appearance. She left, but an hour or so later, she came back into the Primrose Ballroom and collapsed.”
“When she came to, she said she couldn’t find her husband,” Jemma said.
“But she’d found the note,” Summer added.
“That’s right, and then according to the sheriff, sometime after midnight Mr. Finch was stabbed through the eye socket”—I paused, reflecting on the new information we’d discovered minutes ago—“in this tunnel, with a high heel now in our possession.”
“Before guests were milling about the grounds the next morning for the judges’ tea, he was shoved into the kitchen cabinets in the 1950s tent,” Summer concluded.
“Lacy was setting up tents until three a.m., so whoever put him there had to have done it after that.”
“Which means he was likely killed in the early morning hours,” Summer mused. “He had to be placed in the cabinets sometime between three and…”
“Seven a.m.,” Jemma said. “That’s when I led my Broadway Butt-Buster.”
“So, after midnight, he died, and between three and seven a.m. his body was moved,” I finished.
Movedwas a gentler word than what had likely happened, especially if this was a one-man operation. Mr. Finch’s body would have been pulled up the stairs, yanked out of the rose hedge maze, and shoved into the 1950s kitchen cabinets. I could imagine the manhandling that must’ve happened to get Mr. Finch’s body where I’d found it.
“Around nine the next morning, Savilla found her stepmother collapsed in the Finches’ apartment,” Summer continued.
I thought about Savilla finding her stepmother. Had she been shocked? Or had she expected to find her dead? Had she planned all of this with Dr. Bellingham?
As I wondered, Jemma called our attention to what stood only a few yards away now: the end of the tunnel, with a stairway leading up to a door, similar to the one through which we’d entered.
“Thank God. I was beginning to wonder—” I stopped when Jemma put a finger to her lips and pointed above us.
Listen, she mouthed.
Faintly, I heard an echo of voices beyond the door. As the three of us stood still and listened, first came the jumbled voice of a woman. Then a man’s.
It was Dr. Bellingham.
THIRTY-ONE
“You’re hurting me,” Katie Gilman screamed from the shaft above us.
“You deserve whatever they throw at you,” Dr. Bellingham spat back at her.
As Jemma and I leaned forward against the door, trying to open it, Summer crouched low and gave a hard shove.
The three of us sprang out of the earth, and I lunged in front, whether to protect the others or to jump into the fray first, I wasn’t sure. I could hear sounds of a struggle, grunting and kicks and huffs. I could easily imagine which of the two judges was winning, and thinking of Dr. Bellingham forcing himself on a woman lit a fire in me.
I looked around to orient myself, and it took several seconds for my eyes to adjust in the near-darkness. We were inside a building, pots and dead foliage littered around us. Clumps of dirt and fragments of pottery were scattered, and empty windowpanes formed the shape of a toothless smile. We were inside the greenhouse that I’d noticed when Lacy and I had explored the back of the property.
Dr. Bellingham stood with his glasses slanted across his nose and his hair mussed, as if he’d either been in the middle of a passionate embrace or a barroom brawl.
I was on him immediately, leaping onto his back while Jemma kicked him in the stomach and Summer tackled him in the knees. He was on the ground, flailing and shouting as something fell from his hands and clattered onto the ground. Jemma sat on his chest while Summer lay across his legs. I picked up the objects he’d been holding. It was the jars of honey—the deadly ones. So, Dr. Bellingham did know about the toxic honey, and had likely planted one such jar in the Finches’ apartments.
A muffled groan came from a few feet beyond us, and I turned toward it.
“Go,” Jemma said, her long legs straddled across Bellingham’s chest. “We’ve got him pinned.”
