Ruth lay atop another sack that had fallen over, while Alice, glasses askew, had one hand thrust toward the tin of cookies that she had stashed in her purse.
These two resembled others from another planet more than they were likeThe Othersfrom the Nicole Kidman movie.
Roan helped Ruth stand, and after brushing myself off, I collected Alice.
“It was Alice’s idea.” Ruth pointed an accusing finger at our friend. “She wanted to come.”
I raked my fingers down my face. “We could have hurt one or both of you. What are you doing hiding in the basement?”
No one answered, and I directed my ire at Alice. “Ruth said it was your idea; now start talking.”
Alice shoved her glasses up her nose. “I’d always heard weird things about this place, so I went to Roan’s to check and make sure that you had come home. But I found the inn locked. Then I went to your house, Blissful, but you weren’t home, either.”
“What time was that?” I asked.
“Around ten.”
Ruth’s voice was hard. “So she called me and insisted that we head out here to see what was going on.”
“I just wanted to make sure that you were okay,” Alice said quietly.
“And then you arrived and got locked in with the rest of us,” Roan said.
Alice nodded. “That’s right. We didn’t want you to think that we were spying on you, so we decided to hide in the basement all night and come out in the morning, when the doors unlocked.”
“Did you ever, for one minute, think that you might ruin the murder investigation?” I asked.
Alice and Ruth exchanged a look. “Murder,” Alice exclaimed.
“I told you that wasn’t a Christmas decoration,” Ruth snipped. “That was a dead body. Zelda would never leave a dummy of herself on the floor. She has too much pride for that.”
“Had,” Roan corrected.
“Someone stabbed her,” I clarified.
Alice shoved the cookies into her purse. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Somebody who’s here,” Roan said.
“I bet it was that daughter of hers,” Alice said.
“It could have been any of them,” I informed them.
And it could have been, though I didn’t know what motive Tex would’ve had for killing Zelda. Out of all the suspects, he seemed the most innocent.
“What do we do now?” I asked Roan. “We can’t keep Alice and Ruth in the basement all night.”
An amused smile lit on his handsome face. “We were going to spy on the others, try to figure out who killed Zelda. Maybe they can help us.”
I flirted with that idea. Ruth and Alice could be an extra set of eyes for us. They could watch Lemon and Luis, and figure out who really did the killing. Surely it was one of those two.
As I was about to speak, something on the steps grabbed my attention. I glanced up to see Zelda’s spirit on the stairs, flickering like a delicate candle. Blow too hard and she’d disappear.
“Zelda,” I said.
But then Lemon’s sour voice floated down the stairs and the image of Zelda vanished. I shook my head. Fatigue was setting in.
“Well, well, well,” she said. “We’ve got company.”
