Murder in Wonderland (3 page)

              She thought later on that it had started with the whole tablecloth thing, because that seemed like the moment that it started to go downhill. So that meant that it had all started with the dreaded eye in the table. If it weren't for that eye, she would not have left the house when she did. There wouldn't have been any time away from her tea or her scones or anything in her house. If it wasn't for the eye, she could have focused more, could have seen to everything the way she'd been planning it for months. But such was not the case. The eye had dictated that things were destined to fail, and so it had set in motion a series of events designed to will the negative outcome into reality.

              The human mind does things like this in times of crisis. A trip that results in a sloppy fall on the ice is blamed on the ice, not the person doing the actual falling who could have taken every precaution not to fall. So too does the mind look for something to blame when everything seems to fall away from you at once.

              It was Jill, or Jenny. One of them wanted honey for their tea. That had to want honey in their tea; the eye had deemed it necessary.

              The discussion had barely gotten underway. They'd begun analyzing the very concept of nonsense in the tale. It was a fascinating discussion that almost was, were it not for the honey and the will of the eye.

              Allie excused herself to the kitchen. She opened the wrong cupboard. She had a habit of placing things in the wrong cabinets when she rushed. She'd done this more than once, and had been frustrated with herself. Now frustration beat down on her with a sensation that was too intense to bear. She felt like pounding the cupboard doors with her fists. Slamming a cabinet door shut, she tried to get a grip and compose herself. No honey. That's all. It was not the end of the world.

              Or maybe it was.

              It certainly sounded like it.

              Screaming.

              From the living room.

              Tori Cardinal had dropped dead.

              Her collapsing body had apparently hit the coffee table on the way down. There were tea stains, cookies, and bits of scone scattered all around her. Ben Sokol was leaning over the body, which was splayed out in an unnatural position. "She's not breathing."

              He gave the coffee table a shove aside, turned the body over, and proceeded to administer CPR.

              "Somebody call 91—"

              "I'm on it," said Del Collins, her phone to her ear.

              "I don't understand," said Allie. "What happened?"

              "When you went in the kitchen, we were just talking, and she started breathing funny," said June Brody, her voice tinted with uncharacteristic emotion. "She began texting, ignoring us when we asked what was wrong. She stood up and mumbled something about her lawyer, all while looking at her phone, and then..." Her dark eyes were staring down at the body. "My God," she said.

              She overheard Del on the phone. "
... collapsed... convulsions... stopped..."

              Ben looked up, defeated, tears in his eyes. "I don't know what to do. I think she's dead."

              "They're on their way," said Del. "Ben?"

              He looked up at his partner in crime, tears now streaming down his face. "I don't know what to do."

              Allie leaned down. "Are you sure?"

              In leaning down, she noticed something. This type of thing had happened before to her: Noticing a mundane detail in a scene, a slice of life, a bit of decoration that would otherwise go unnoticed. She sometimes felt as if she were put on this earth to notice these things, for no one else would. And so it happened again when, leaning down, she glanced over and saw Tori Cardinal's cellphone still lit up, frozen in the midst of an outgoing text message. The words, "croquet mallet" had been typed there. It was like when the clocks stopped on the Titanic, she thought.

              There was the moment that lasted an eternity as Ben confirmed the unthinkable, and Allie offered her hand to him and helped him up, and everyone and everything was quiet.

              "Everyone just stay calm," Allie said. "Maybe we should all go outside and wait.

              She thought for a moment of covering up the body, but all she had was the tablecloth. Allie Griffin was a better person than that.

#

              If there was one thing Allie was grateful for, it was that there was no sign of Detective Harry Tomlin.

              Everyone in Verdenier knew Detective Tomlin. The Verdenier Police Department had been short one detective, and although he'd pulled in quite a bit of revenue in the form of tickets for everything ranging from dirty license plates to doing 35 in a 25, there were countless complaints of harassment with his name on them sitting on Chief Dupond's desk. When, during the town's annual Mayday parade, Sgt. Tomlin told the Verdenier mayor's wife to "move that shapeless body of yours back onto the curb," there followed a weeklong bargaining session, with Chief Dupond fighting to retain the troublemaker on his payroll and the mayor's wife fighting to get Tomlin banished to the nearest leper colony. But some good deed done by Tomlin long ago in his youth had evidently pleased the gods, and they favored him with an elegant solution: the Verdenier Police Department's only detective came down with a case of shingles, went on temporary leave, then bought a boat and opted for early retirement. In the meantime, the chief stripped Tomlin of his sergeant's rank, which appeased the mayor's wife; transferred him to detective, which appeased the good and bad people of Verdenier; and brought in a new sergeant from a neighboring county.

              This latter fellow, a graying, tired-eyed individual by the name of Beauchenne, was on the scene.

              "Ok," the sergeant said, exhaling the word more than speaking it. "Who here was present when the woman collapsed and started? Everyone here?"

              "I was in the kitchen when it happened," said Allie, feeling as though those words fell heavily in the room.

              "Ok, well, we’ll need a statement nonetheless."

              Beauchenne removed his hat and stroked his salt and pepper hair. "It's going to be ok. Everyone just relax and it'll all be over soon enough."

              They gave their statements, and Allie watched as the coroner's men wheeled a dead woman out of her home.

              There were no words for her to offer her guests. They bid awkward farewells to each other, and one by one they left.

              All except for Del, who gave Allie a much-needed hug and an invitation to stay the night at her place.

              "Alright if I bring the cat?"

              "If he doesn't want to watch TLC, there might be a problem. Otherwise, he's more than welcome. Oh, I'm sorry to do this to you, but I don't know what else to do. Ben gave me this."

              In her hand was Tori Cardinal's cellphone.

              "What are you doing with this?"

              "One of the twins handed it to Ben. She picked it up off the floor and said she didn't know what to do with it. Ben gave it to me with the same phrase. So now I'm giving it to you."

              Allie shook her head in disbelief. The whole day was now one giant unreality.

              "Thanks," she said. "I'll pack up some stuff and meet you over at your place."

              Del left, and Allie was alone in the house.

              Really alone.

              Life had been sucked out of the place, and it terrified her.

              And now a small, solid proof right in her hand that what had happened had actually happened. This was no unreality.

              Troubling thoughts came to her mind. Like, what if Tori got a text or a call? It almost made her laugh. Gallows humor was sickening at best, she'd always thought. Now, she understood why people tend to laugh in situations like this. It's the sound of your soul trembling.

              She turned the phone over in her hand. The screen flickered to life. In a fit of morbid curiosity, she swiped the screen to unlock it. Tori had no password activated. She opened the text messages app.

              The words "croquet mallet" were gone.

              "I really want to go back to my house," Allie said around a mouthful of brie and grilled pears. "You can't stop me."

              March was turning out to be a lovely month, with prematurely warming days, stiff breezes that carried the scents of spring on them, and clearing skies and senses. Allie and Del sat around a wrought-iron table outside the Creek Falls café, basking in sun and farm-fresh foods.

              "That place is too big for you. Move in with me," said Del, shaking a spinach wrap free of its loose ingredients. "I work during the day. You can sit around and...you know...do whatever it is you do... What
do
you do all day anyway?"

              "Cut it out. I have things to do. I read. I plan. I shop."

              "You can have all that plus companionship."

              "You? I can't even tolerate you for the length of lunch."

              "Not me. A man. A life-partner? You know that Sgt. Beauchenne was looking at you with googly eyes."

              "He's too old for me."

              "Ah yes, I keep forgetting you like them fresh out of high school."

              "Enough. I’ve got my books. And my dreams. That's enough."

              "For some."

              "Eat your food."

              "Not for nothin'," said Del, "but won't you feel a little, I don't know,
uncomfortable
in there after yesterday?"

              "It's my house. And it's Hitler's sweater."

              Del stopped chewing, her mouth still full. She looked around, then back at Allie, and began chewing again. "I'm sorry; I may have been abducted by aliens just then. I think I missed something."

              "There was this psychological study where they asked a bunch of people if they'd rather wear a sweater that belonged to Hitler or Mr. Rogers. You probably guessed that the majority of answers were overwhelmingly in favor of Mr. Rogers. People can't bear the thought of wearing Hitler's sweater, as if his essence or bits of his soul are stuck in the fibers. But it's just fibers. It's dead, lifeless, soulless wool. It doesn't matter who wore it, it's still a sweater."

              Del nodded. "Keep going, I think I'm actually almost understanding you."

              "It's my house. Tom and I shared it for all those years. Everywhere I turn there are a thousand wonderful memories. Yes, there are some bad ones too, but those are weak and blurry. And this one will weaken as well. I don't mean to sound cold. That's just the truth of it. It doesn't matter what happened there. It’s all in the mind and the soul of the person who lives there. Understand?"

              "Do you get this smart from all those books you read, or is there some pill you take?"

              "It's actually a pill," said Allie, pausing to check her teeth in a compact mirror. "Which reminds me, I have to renew the script."

              Del put down her sandwich and frowned at its half-finished remains. "I can't stop thinking about it. The way she got up, then fell over. The sound of the coffee table...her convulsing like that..." She shook her head and took a sip of her lemonade.

              "It's ok," said Allie. "I keep turning it over in my head too. And this is going to sound strange, and maybe a bit cold, but I'm telling you, this is helping me. Playing it over from different angles and seeing it as one big puzzle. It's been helping me cope with the horror of it. I'm sorry, is that terrible?"

              "No, not terrible. You're a deep thinker. You always have been. That's why I always keep you around. I hate thinking."

              "No, but seriously. It is a puzzle, is it not? A woman died in front of us. No apparent reason. I mean, she seemed fine when she came in. Didn't she seem fine?"

              "As fine as old wine."

              "I mean, nothing. Not one thing wrong with her. Right? No indication of anything wrong with her. She was at the gym all the time. Health nut. Weight Watchers for that skinny little body of hers. Fine foods. Isn’t it odd?"

              "So...what are you saying?"

              "All I'm saying is it's strange. And it's not like she was exactly the most well-liked individual. You could point to anyone in that room and pin a motive for murder on any one of them."

              Del touched her arm. "Ok. My darling, you've had too much brie. No one in that room is a murderer."

              "You were there, but you didn't observe. As the hostess, I was hypersensitive to everything happening in that house that morning. There was this hostility in the air just before Tori arrived. All of you were contributing, generating it like electricity. It was a little scary. To be honest with you, I'm not surprised that girl was murdered."

              Del put her hands up. "Ok, hold it. Aren't you sort of jumping the gun a bit here?" She looked around, and her voice lowered to a near-whisper. "You're really talking about murder?"

              Allie leaned in and mimicked her tone. "Yes, I'm really talking about murder."

              "What do you know that I don't? That the cops don't?"

              Allie smiled, but inside she was as solemn as a morgue. "I know my book club guests."