“How were their interviews?”
“Similar to ours, from the sound of it.” He polishes off his drink, tipping his head back as he does, then lifts the brandy snifter. “Can I pour you a splash of Courvoisier? I’ll gladly join you in another round.”
“Better not. I actually haven’t had much of an appetite since your mom died.”
He nods somberly. “Me, either, to tell you the truth.”
“This must be so awful for you today,” I tell him, an idea forming of how I might be able to lead him to my suspicions about Hannah indirectly. “You’ve barely had any time to mourn the loss of your mom.”
“I know. I feel like I’ve had to park my grief in the overflow parking lot and will need to come back to it later.”
“One of the things that makes your mom’s death sohard to deal with—at least for me—is the suddenness of it. It seemed to come out of nowhere. But Gabe says you mentioned she’d been on heart medication for a while. Some kind of diuretic?”
“That’s right. And also amlodipine. It’s a calcium channel blocker that relaxes blood vessels so that enough blood and oxygen can reach the heart. But nothing’s foolproof, unfortunately.”
“I think an aunt of mine takes both of those,” I lie. “And she mentioned once that other things can interfere with their effectiveness. Do you think that could have happened in your mother’s case?”
He raises a single eyebrow, in a way that reminds me of Gabe. “I’m not following.”
“Well, I remember my aunt told me you have to be careful with diuretics. That if she were to take something like, uh, digitalis, with them, it could make her heart beat too fast.”
“But my mother didn’t take digitalis,” he says.
“Right, I was speaking generally. That something might mix the wrong way with a medication.”
“Did your aunt end up with a problem?”
Backing into the subject is getting me nowhere fast, but I don’t feel comfortable blurting out my true concerns.
“No, no, she didn’t.... Um, I should head back to the kitchen and send Bonnie home.”
“And I should get back to Wendy. If you need us, we’ll be in the den, trying to distract ourselves with terrible television.”
Bonnie, I discover, is now at the table, sorting through astack of index cards and looking beleaguered, the dogs at her feet. Her hair’s tied back now with a fat blue rubber band, the kind used to bunch broccoli or asparagus in the supermarket.
“Oh, Bonnie,” I say. “You can’t still be working.”
“I’m just taking a minute to think through the menu for tomorrow. Claire and I had planned a cookout for Thursday, but that now seems—”
She’s been working much, much too hard. “Actually, I don’t want you to even think about coming in tomorrow. You need a break from all this, Bonnie.”
“Oh, no, I—”
“I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll confirm with Ash when I see him, but I know he would want you to have some time off. Gabe and I know our way around a kitchen, and Keira’s a great cook. Everyone will pitch in.”
“Gosh, if you’re sure, Summer, I would love that. Twenty-four hours to clear my head and recharge would help a lot.” She fingers the gold cross that’s peeking out from the open collar of her blue jersey shirt. “I think I’m still in a state of shock, you know—from what we saw.”
“Me, too.” I pull out a chair at the table, and it’s only when I drop into it that I realize how much my entire body aches from fatigue—not to mention stress and fear.
“Do you think she suffered?” Bonnie asks haltingly.
The horrible image surfaces in the front of my brain again. I’d assumed Jillian suffered, based on the vicious wound on the back of her head.What caused it?I ask myself.The butt of a rifle? A rock?It would have had to be something sharp, I decide.
“Maybe not,” I lie. “It’s possible she died instantly.” Ofcourse, if someone had attempted to sexually assault her, and the jury’s still out on that, she would have been beyond terrified for a few minutes beforehand.
“I hope so. As you know, I wasn’t always a fan of Jillian’s, but I can’t stand thinking of her dying that way.”
I straighten a bit, as something in me stirs. “Why weren’t you a fan? Because she was trying to micromanage the luncheon yesterday?”
