“There’s no way it could’ve poisoned him so fast,” Charlie muttered almost to himself.
“Regardless,” I said firmly, “with this footage and with the rhubarb garnish you found in Brett’s drink, you should probably focus on questioning Joe, don’t you think? He was the one making the drinks, after all.”
“I have questioned Joe,” he said. “And I see what you’re doing.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I said, with faux innocence.
I longed to escape to any room with a bed and sleep for the next twelve hours.
Charlie shot me a curious look. “I’ll talk to Joe again, but afterward I need to confront…” His words trailed away.
Neither of us wanted him to finish that statement.
“I’m sure we’ll have more sufficient evidence soon enough.” I said the words with more confidence than I felt.
Instead of bustling out the door, Charlie leaned back against the wall and rubbed a hand across his brow in a childlike gesture. His usually bright eyes were tired and his shoulders were weighted with the burden of a man’s death, but he still needed my help.
Maybe that was enough for now.
TWELVE
After Charlie and I parted with curt nods to one another, I started toward the kitchen, where Joe had spent the afternoon with Aunt DeeDee before guests had arrived. Maybe that space held some kind of clue. I just had to find it first.
I wandered through the house, passing various rooms and halls—the solarium, the library, the Color Gallery—that were becoming more and more familiar, before stumbling into the kitchen.
It was as large as any I’d imagine in a restaurant, and it was covered in state-of-the-art, stainless-steel appliances. At the back appeared to be a walk-in fridge, and everything was industrial-sized.
I spotted Aunt DeeDee standing at a long island wearing an apron with red strawberries scattered across it, hand-beating what looked to be whipping cream. A dishwasher was working a few yards away, the countertops were laden with half-empty trays of canapés and finger foods, and a server was leaving as I walked in.
“Oh, Lord, Dakota,” Aunt DeeDee breathed as she set down the bowl. “I’m half afraid to come out and be carted off to jail like last time.”
I attempted a faint smile. “I think you’re in the clear, though Charlie and the deputy will probably have questions for you at some point.”
Aunt DeeDee raised her eyebrows at the mention of the deputy. “I met her. Seems like a nice enough gal, but very…”
“Pretty?” I finished.
My aunt lifted a shoulder. “You have to trust your man.”
“Right, well, Joe’s in the ballroom now with the other witnesses, detailing what they saw, so I thought I’d take the chance to look around in here.”
Aunt DeeDee nodded easily. “I can tell you this: Brett didn’t have a single thing to eat from this kitchen.” That matched with what Presley had said about his strange eating habits, but Aunt DeeDee was speaking so quickly that I couldn’t get a word in. “I already had one of the servers confirm it, which was a relief, and, apparently, that man never ate anything except for a few hours a day. I don’t know how a body can live like that.”
I knew Aunt DeeDee, who loved to serve any person within a mile a large helping of down-home cooking, would be appalled at such a notion, but in this instance, I was glad she could provide confirmation—albeit second-hand—of his fasting, because that meant that whatever had killed Brett had to have been either in his glass or from some other direction we hadn’t yet considered.
It was still hard to wrap my mind around the reality of Brett’s death. Not that I was inexperienced with the concept of death—in fact, my entire course of study was how to treat creatures whose bodies were betraying them. I’d also watched my own mother struggle for breath at the end of her life, and I’d been the one to find Mr. Finch’s body. Brett’s death felt different though. Someone my age, whom I’d known for most of my life, was gone.
“You okay, doll?” Aunt DeeDee asked, putting aside her mixing bowl and coming to stand next to me. “You need to talkabout something?” She put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and with the other, she stroked my hair out of my eyes, the same thing she’d done to help me fall asleep as a child.
I leaned into her. “It’s just… I don’t know what to do.”
“About?”
Where to start? My future career? Charlie’s odd ambivalence toward me? The fact that I’m Savilla’s illegitimate half-sister?
The last one actually made the most sense. I hadn’t yet told Aunt DeeDee about it, for two reasons: first, I didn’t want to burden her with news I couldn’t quite process myself, and second, I didn’t want anyone in my life, especially my aunt, to look at me differently after learning I was a member of the richest family in the state.
But how could I say all of that in between watching a man die, suffering a panic attack, and investigating a potential murder? I supposed, as Momma would say, I just had to spit it out.
