“Called all of my suspects and asked them to come here,” Sherry said. A small, hysterical little laugh escaped her chest. “Notyou, you’re moral support. Most of the rest of them are suspects. I’m pulling a Poirot.”
“A what?” Janine asked, and pulled back to look at her. A moment later her heavily shadowed eyes went wide. “Oh, no. You mean the part at the end? When he calls everyone together and explains who did it?”
Sherry nodded. Janine sighed. “I really hope you know what you’re doing, Sherry. Did you ask the sheriff to be here, at least?”
“I don’t,” Sherry said. “And I did.”
Janine gave Sherry a look that told herexactlywhat she thought of Sherry trying to be clever. “So he’s coming? That’s something. We don’t want to end up with bodies in the library.”
“That was a Poirot, I think,” Sherry said, with another helpless giggle. “Or a Miss Marple? I don’t remember. But I’ll try to make it the opposite. No bodies in the library this evening.”No bodies in Winesap, either, she hoped, if she managed to accomplish what she wanted to tonight. “Tea?”
She made two big pots of tea in teapots that were still rattling around the office from last year’s garden party, spurred on by a bizarre compulsion to be a good hostess despite what she was planning. She set the tea things up in the meeting room. The rest of her guests and suspects started trickling in. Father Barry arrived, and Alice. The Thompsons showed up in one cautious bunch, with Todd there to lead them. Charlotte arrived and planted herself close to Sherry’s side. Jason came in, looking baffled and anxious, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Then, finally, the sheriff arrived, slipping quietly into the room as if he was hoping not to be noticed.
For a moment after he’d arrived, Sherry just stood there like an uncomfortable plus-one at a wedding. Then she pulled herself together and cleared her throat. “If you could all head into the meeting room in the back, please? Thank you.”
They all shuffled in a murmuring mass into the back and took their seats; all except Jason, who leaned against the wall close to the door like he wanted to be prepared to make a fast escape. Janine sprang into action to help Sherry pass the teapots around. Some people refused it with looks of dramatic disbelief that anyone could drink tea under these circumstances, but others filled their cups. There was a muted clinking of spoons. Corey was the first to crack and speak. “What exactly are we doing here, Miss Pinkwhistle?”
Sherry gave a smile that she hoped looked calm and confident rather than like the bared teeth of a submissive chimpanzee. “I know that it’s a little strange,” she said, “but I’ve asked you all to come here today because one of you killed Alan Thompson.”
Twenty-four
Everyone started talking at the same time. It was just like in an Agatha Christie. Sherry wondered whether that was from demonic interference. Probably not: probably the chaos that ensued after you’d just announced that you were pulling a Poirot was the natural, organic reaction from any normal group of people. “Oh, come on, seriously? Like some kind of Sherlock Holmes thing?” This was Corey again. “If you know who killed Dad, then why didn’t you just call the police?”
“I did,” Sherry said. “Sheriff Brown is right here with us.” She gave him a nod and received a slightly reluctant-looking nod back. Then she spoke directly to the demon. “There’s someone also in the room with us who I think may have been…involved with some of the strange things that have happened recently in Winesap. I hope that my doing this will encourage that person to speak with me, as we agreed they would.”
Everyone was staring at her. Father Barry very discreetly made the sign of the cross. Sherry swallowed and thought her way back to every old-fashioned detective story she’d ever read or seen. They did this with flair, usually. She suspected that the demon liked flair very much. Fine: that’s what she’d try to provide.
“It was very clear from the crime scene that Alan knew and trusted his killer,” she began. “He invited them inside and made tea for them before he died. Everyone in this room knew Alan well enough for him to have willingly let them in late on a snowy Saturday night. Almost everyone in this room might have profited in one way or another from Alan’s death. I wasn’t short of motives in this case. The problem was that there were too many people who might have benefited from his getting sick or having an accident, but no clear individual who both had the opportunity to kill him last Saturday night, and who was truly desperate enough to follow through and kill a man who was in the process of serving them a cup of tea.”
She let her eyes flick over the assembled people. Some looked away, some at the table. Jason looked fidgety and anxious. Alice looked close to tears. Mrs. Thompson was stone-faced; Eli was glancing around the room like he thought there might be secret cameras recording the scene. Corey was scowling. Todd gazed straight back at her, looking amused and engaged by the proceedings, as if he’d paid for a night at the murder mystery dinner theater and was already enjoying the show.
She continued. “In an investigation like this, the first people that the police look at are usually the victim’s nearest and dearest. I’ll begin in the same way, with Alan’s wife and children.”
“This is bullshit,” Corey said. Sherry ignored him and continued.
“All of Alan’s immediate family members profited enormously from his death. None of them were rich a month ago, but with Alan gone, all three of them are millionaires. Out of everyone here, Susan Thompson might have one of thestrongest motives for wanting her husband dead. He broke up their marriage after many years together, then refused to come to what she felt would be equitable terms in their divorce. People sometimes kill their exes just for revenge, but in this case, she’d also finally be getting the money that he’d been denying her for years. She was also seen with Alan on the day that he died. There was also Eli, the older son. I got the sense that Eli must have been used to his father taking him for granted. There he was, working hard every day at the office to provide for his family, while his father regularly handed cash to his younger brother.
“The only problem with either of them as suspects is that they both have strong alibis. I made some phone calls this afternoon and was able to confirm that Susan Thompson attended a gala and Eli Thompson was enjoying beers with his running club in Connecticut. Though it might be theoreticallypossiblethat one of them managed to slip away, get up to Winesap, kill Alan, and then get back home again without anyone noticing, it seemsunlikelythat either of them could have done it in time.”
She looked toward Corey. He was still scowling, his arms folded over his chest. It made him look much less attractive than he was in his Instagram pictures. “Corey Thompson,” Sherry said, “was the son that his father worried about. He has a history of asking his father for money, and his father had a history of paying up. Alan was very happy when Corey started expressing interest in working with him for the antiques shop, and he was absolutely delighted when it seemed that Corey had a real aptitude for sourcing and framing fairly valuable pieces of fine art to resell. By the time Alan died, Corey was practically co-owner of the shop.”
She took a sip of tea, then continued. “Corey has all of the million-dollar motivation for murder that his mother and brother have, on top of an interest in his father’s business, and a very expensive lifestyle to maintain. What he lacks is an alibi. Is that accurate, Corey? Is there anyone who could confirm where you were on the night your father died?”
His scowl deepened. “No,” he said shortly. “I was home alone. I’d been out late Friday night and didn’t feel like doing anything.”
“Thank you,” Sherry said. “We’ve established that young Corey has motive, and he doesn’t have an alibi. Those are two points against him. Whatdoesn’texist is any evidence that he was here, in Winesap, at any time when he could have committed the crime. I’d therefore like to set him aside for now.
“Now that we’ve moved on from Alan’s immediate family, we need to consider other people in his life who might have wanted to see him dead for one reason or another. Friends, lovers, employees. Alan had a few friends in Winesap, but none of them would have any reason to have a grudge against him, and none had any financial entanglements with him that I could discover. He also had an employee, Alice, and a—girlfriend. Me.”
Her face felt hot. She continued, anyway. “I’ve claimed to have never known that Alan was still married, or that he’d left me his house in his will.” She had to pause for a moment at the muted murmur in the room at that. “It would be reasonable to doubt me. Jealousy or desire to inherit a million-dollar estate would both be very convincing reasons for a woman to want to kill her boyfriend. I was also the last person to have seen Alan alive. For both of those reasons, I should probably be the biggest suspect in the case.”
The room was very quiet. Janine leaned in closer to Sherry’s side as if she was preparing to catch her if she suddenly collapsed. Sherry continued. “There’s also Alice. On the day he died, Alan mentioned to me that he was unhappy with Alice’s performance at work. Could he have fired Alice earlier that day? Alice had been struggling with money, and having been fired might keep her from being able to claim unemployment benefits.”
“He didn’t fire me,” Alice said.
Everyone turned to look at her. Alice shrank back into her chair, visibly diminished by the attention. “He didn’t,” she said, almost in a whisper. “He said he felt like I was zoning out a lot lately. I said I would try to do better. That’s all that happened.”
“We only have your word for that, though it does fit with what Alan said to me,” Sherry said, as kindly as she could under the circumstances. “What’s more important is that you have a fairly strong alibi. Both of us do.” She addressed the wider room. “Alan’s estimated time of death was between ten and midnight. He dropped me off at home at about ten fifteen, and I walked across the street to talk to Alice before I went home and went to bed. She woke me up again at a quarter after midnight to ask me for my help after her power went out. Neither Alice nor I own a car. In good weather it takes about forty-five minutes to walk from where we live to Alan’s house, and more than an hour to walk back. I couldn’t have possibly killed Alan at ten and walked up to have a chat with Alice a few minutes later, and she couldn’t possibly have talked to me, walked down there, talked to Alan, killed him, and walked back again all in under two hours in the middle of a blizzard.Barring a conspiracy between the two of us, or between one of us and an unknown getaway driver, I’m prepared to set aside both Alice and myself as suspects for now.”
