Jane laughed. “You shouldn’t be so jumpy, Lizzie. I’m going, but I’ll be back if there are any more developments. Count on it.” She disappeared into the woods, hopefully going to wherever she’d left her car. Winston made as though to follow her, but I called to him, and for once he did as he’d been told. I heard the woman’s heavy footsteps, accompanied by the snapping of branches and her constant griping, for a long time.

  When all was quiet again, I looked down. Water was washing over the top of my shoes, and my stockings were soaked.

  I didn’t have a spare pair of pumps in Velvet’s room. I intended to go to the hotel to check in at the kitchen and then show my face in the lobby and on the veranda as people gathered before dinner. If Jane had bothered any more of our guests, or if anyone had concerns about the reporter sneaking around in the bushes, I needed to be nearby to hear them and reassure my guests I had everything under control.

  Grumbling, I headed to the house I share with Olivia while Winston ran on ahead. Olivia had told me earlier Gloria was planning to join Gary, Matthew, and some of the other cast and crew at Kennelwood for a casual dinner after looking over the footage they’d taken the last few days. They’d then decide what steps needed to be taken before they packed up their equipment and left the Catskills.

  I climbed the steps to the porch and opened the screen door. The inner door was open to let in the air, and Winston ran ahead of me.

  “Only me,” I called. “I have to change my—” I froze, the sentence dying in my throat.

  My mother lay on the carpet next to the dining room table, facedown, arms outstretched. A dinner plate was on the table, next to an unfinished glass of wine and her book. A shattered water glass lay on the floor next to her.

  I screamed and ran toward her. I dropped to my knees while Winston tried to lick the side of her face. “Olivia!” I shoved the dog aside and turned my mother over. Her eyes were closed and she did not move.

  Chapter 19

  “I need an ambulance. I need a doctor. I need . . . help!” I screamed into the phone.

  “Calling the ambulance service now, Mrs. Grady,” the switchboard operator said, her voice perfectly calm. “Dr. Fife is staying at the hotel. I’ll have him paged.”

  “Hurry. Please tell them to hurry.”

  I threw the receiver onto the cradle and ran back to my mother. Her eyelashes fluttered, and I was so relieved I burst into tears. “It’s okay. I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

  Winston whined and pushed his muzzle into her side, telling her to get up. Her chest rose and fell, slowly but at least it was moving. “Elizabeth.” The gigantic dark eyes flicked open, and I could read the fear in them. Winston licked her face. I grabbed the dog by his collar, dragged him into my room, and slammed the door on his protests.

  I dropped to my knees next to Olivia and cradled her hand in mine. “I’m here, Mom. I’m here.”

  It was probably only a few minutes, but it felt like hours until Winston’s steady whine turned to a bark, and I heard pounding footsteps hitting the steps and the creak of the porch floorboards.

  Velvet and Randy ran into the house. They hadn’t yet dressed for this evening’s dancing and were in their casual clothes. Velvet wrapped her arms around me and guided me to my feet, while Randy took my place. “It’s okay,” Velvet said. “Dr. Fife’s gone to his room for his bag and a bellhop’s with him to bring him here. The funeral home’s sending their ambulance.”

  “Miss Peters,” Randy said. “Lie still. Help’s on the way.”

  “I . . . I . . . ,” she said.

  “Whoa!” Randy yelled. I pulled myself away from Velvet in time to see Randy scrambling backward and my mother rolling onto her side and vomiting onto the carpet.

  “It’s okay.” Randy’s voice was steady and calm. “It’s going to be okay, Miss Peters. You lie still and let us take care of everything. That’s good,” he called over his shoulder to me, “that she’s been sick. Get it all up.”

  Olivia moaned and fell back again. Her face was pale, her eyes dark pools in a stark white face, her lips colorless.

  More footsteps and the screen door crashed open again. The doctor who’d helped me with Elias on Monday night ran in, carrying his black medical bag. My aunt Tatiana was right behind him. A bellhop hovered in the doorway.

  Randy got up to let the doctor work.

  “Lie still, Miss Peters,” Dr. Fife said. “You’re going to be perfectly fine. We’ll get you to the hospital and have you checked out just to be safe.”

  Velvet led me to the couch and pushed me down. Aunt Tatiana stood behind the doctor, wringing her hands. “What is it, Doctor? What’s the matter?”

  “Was she conscious when you found her?” he called over his shoulder to me.

  “No. yes. Maybe. I turned her over, but she didn’t move, so I ran for the phone. When I got back her eyes were open and she was breathing.”

  He pulled Olivia’s eyelids up and peered into her eyes and then he felt behind her ears. “Some color’s returning, and that’s good. This”—he indicated the mess on the floor—“when did this happen?”

  “A minute or two before you got here,” Randy said.

  “She brought it up and then immediately started getting better?”

  “Yeah. Looks like it.”

  “I suggest you call the police, Mrs. Grady,” the doctor said. “The last time I saw this, it was as we were about to take Mr. Theropodous to the hospital.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “Sorry about the busman’s holiday,” I said to the doctor.

  He gave me a warm smile. “I’ve never been one for relaxing on vacation. To my wife’s continual despair. As I’m not needed here anymore, I’ll be off.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be available if the police need to talk to me,” Dr. Fife said.

  Olivia had brought up the remainder of the contents of her stomach as she was being loaded onto the stretcher to be taken to the ambulance, and the doctor had been hopeful that was the last of it.

  Whatever it was.

  Randy had called Dave Dawson, and the chief had been waiting at the hospital when Velvet, Aunt Tatiana, and I arrived. After Olivia had been checked out and admitted, Dr. Higgins and the chief of police huddled together, talking in low voices for a long time.

  Chief Dawson dropped into the badly sprung chair across from the badly sprung couch where Velvet, Tatiana, and I huddled together. “You can go up to the ward and see Miss Peters shortly. The doctor assures me she’s going to be fine, but she needs rest and watching over tonight.”

  Aunt Tatiana muttered in Russian.

  “Looks as though something she ate made her sick,” Dave said. “Does Miss Peters prepare her own meals in your house?”

  I shook my head firmly. “Never. We make tea and coffee, maybe toast now and again, but neither of us cook. My mother never learned, and although I like to cook, I simply don’t have the time these days. We always have our meals brought up from the hotel kitchen. A room-service tray was on the dining room table and the remains of her dinner on room-service plates. I saw an unfinished glass of wine, but that most likely came out of our cupboard.”

  “I’ll send one of my officers to collect them.”

  “Before you continue with this line of questioning,” I said. “I called the hotel after we got here and they say that, once again, not one other person has shown any signs of illness, not even the slightest.”

  “Once again,” Velvet repeated. “You think this has something to do with Elias Theropodous?”

  “It has to,” I said. “The coincidence is too much.”

  “Elias took sick hours after he ate,” Velvet said. “Olivia didn’t even finish her dinner.”

  I looked at Chief Dawson. He gave me a slight nod, telling me to continue.

  “First, we don’t know exactly when Elias was given the poison. Up to a couple of hours, the autopsy said. It might have been sooner than that. Second, Olivia is a very slow eater, as you know. Her book was on the table next to her plate. If she’d been reading over her meal she might have been there for some time.”

  “Dosage matters,” the chief said. “As does the size of the person ingesting it. If Miss Peters, who’s substantially smaller than Mr. Theropodous, had received a larger dose, it might have taken effect quicker. Ironically, the stronger dose might have saved her life. Her stomach rebelled instantly.”

  “That and the fact that Elizabeth found her when she did,” Velvet said.

  I shuddered. If Jane Donaldson hadn’t startled me into stepping into the creek, I wouldn’t have gone home for dry shoes. Olivia might have been okay if I hadn’t discovered her, but that was by no means certain. I wouldn’t thank Jane for saving my mother’s life, but I’d think it.

  “I see no reason this should get into the press,” Dave said. “A woman took ill and was admitted to the hospital. It’s a private matter.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “As long as no one else at Haggerman’s shows up at this hospital tonight, that is. I’ll have the contents of your mother’s plate and glass analyzed, but that’ll take a few days.”

  A nurse, a picture of efficiency in her crisp white cap and dress with a watch pinned to the shoulder, wide black belt, white stockings, and heavy white shoes, came into the waiting room. “Miss Peters is settled in her room. She can have visitors, but only for a couple of minutes and only her daughter and Chief Dawson. Doctor’s orders.”

  “I am sister!” Tatiana rose to her feet. My mother and her sister had been born and educated in America but when she was stressed, which wasn’t often, Tatiana fell into her own mother’s speech patterns.

  “Doctor’s orders,” the nurse repeated. Her look was so severe, her tone so firm, even Aunt Tatiana was intimidated. She resumed her seat.

  “We’ll wait here,” Velvet said.

  Chief Dawson and I found my mother propped up in bed, dressed in a tattered, many-times-washed, yellowing hospital gown, clutching the bedcovers. She was fully conscious, although frighteningly pale and shaky. Her face had been scrubbed clean and her hair tied back into a rough bun. She gave me a weak smile, and I took her hand in mine. It felt so thin, so fragile.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Sick. Dreadful. The doctor assures me I’ll be better tomorrow.”

  “Can you tell me what happened this evening, Miss Peters?” Dave said.

  “I scarcely know.”

  “The doctor believes you ate something that . . . disagreed with you.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “You think . . . poison?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I said. “What did you have for dinner?”

  “The broccoli soup followed by a ham and cheese sandwich and a salad. Nothing special. It came from the kitchen. I had a glass of wine with it, but I poured the wine from a bottle I opened myself.”

  “Who brought the tray to you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Can you describe him?”

  “That’s the point, Elizabeth. I didn’t see who brought it.”

  That took me aback. “How is that possible?”

  “What are you saying?” Dave asked. “Tell me how it works.”

  “I phone the kitchen some time over the afternoon and let them know if I’m eating in, if Elizabeth or anyone else will be joining me, and what I would like,” Olivia said. “I instruct them as to what time to bring it.”

  “Do they prepare your food individually or as part of the regular hotel menu?”

  “I never ask for anything special, unless I’m entertaining, which was not the case today. The kitchen tells me what’s available and I order. A room-service waiter or a busboy brings a tray to the house at the desired time.”

  “But you didn’t see who brought it tonight,” I said.

  Olivia leaned back against her pillows. She closed her eyes.

  “You need to think,” I said. “This could be important.”

  “I am thinking,” she said. “If you will only stop talking.”

  Dave suppressed a chuckle.

  “Gloria, Judy, and I returned from the film shoot around three. Gloria and I came directly to the house. Judy said she was going to her room for a nap, as she has a performance tonight. I made Gloria and me a cup of tea, and she went to her room to write letters. She was planning to go to Kennelwood later, to see the rushes and have dinner there, so I called the kitchen to arrange to have something sent to me. I had not had anything for lunch, so I asked them to bring my dinner early, at five. Thus I had a sandwich, as the main courses would not be ready yet. I then went for a nap of my own.” Her voice trailed off.

  “And . . . ,” I prompted.

  She opened her eyes. “I woke around four thirty, had a bath, and refreshed my appearance, because I’d decided to go to the ballroom later to hear Judy, as it’s her last night with us. At five thirty, I realized my dinner had not arrived, although I’d requested it for five. I phoned the kitchen, and they assured me it had been sent. I checked the porch, and a room-service tray was on the table. I hadn’t heard the waiter arrive.”

  Dave and I exchanged glances. My mother’s food had been left on the porch for as long as half an hour.

  “I need to talk to whoever brought it,” I said. “They aren’t supposed to leave food sitting outside, for heaven’s sake. The porch at our house isn’t enclosed, and a cloche won’t keep out an inquisitive, not to mention hungry, raccoon. It won’t even keep out Winston.”

  “Winston?” Dave asked.

  “My aunt Tatiana’s dog.” I turned back to my mother. “Olivia, do you know—?”

  She was asleep, snoring softly.

  I brushed my lips against the paper-thin, almost translucent skin of her cheek, and Dave and I left the room.

  “She had a salad with her supper,” I said when we were outside in the corridor. “I haven’t forgotten that my saladman is Elias Theropodous’s brother. Did you find anything out about that?”

  “The staties talked to him. He admits that he and Elias met on Saturday morning, as you told me. The old resentments boiled over almost instantly, and they started arguing. Nick stormed out of the diner, and he claims not to have seen or spoken to his brother since. He says he heard at the same time as everyone else in the hotel that Elias had died, and he was sorry they hadn’t reconciled but, according to him, that was Elias’s fault. Not his.”

  “Did they ask him if he paid someone to kill his brother?”

  “Not in so many words. I’ll keep my eye on him, but I can’t do much more than that.”

  “I asked Luke, the waiter, about the car. Turns out it’s not his; he’s using it while his friend’s away. All that means is he didn’t buy a car, not that he might not have been paid off by Nick Timmins, or someone else.”

  “Luke was interviewed extensively after Elias’s death, and he claims to have observed nothing untoward at the dinner, or later in the ballroom. I specifically asked if he’d seen anyone potentially interfering with Elias’s food or drink and he said no. I asked him if he himself had added anything, even accidentally, and again he said no. I know what you’re thinking, Elizabeth, but there’s no indication, so far, that Nick Timmins wanted to kill his brother, or that your waiter helped him do it.”

  * * *

  * * *

  When Dave and I returned to the waiting room, we found not only Aunt Tatiana and Velvet but Mary-Alice Renzetti and Richard Kennelwood also.

  Richard leapt to his feet when we came in. “How is she?”

  “She’s sleeping now. She’ll be fine,” I said. “Thank you for coming. How did you hear?”

  “I called him,” Velvet said. “Gloria needs to know Olivia’s in the hospital, so she doesn’t worry when she gets back from Kennelwood and sees the state we left your house in and Olivia gone.”

  “Thanks,” I said to her.

  “Matthew asked me to come on his behalf,” Mary-Alice said. “I was happy to do so.”

  “Where’s Gloria?” I asked.

  “Freemont drove us, and we dropped her at your hotel on the way here,” Mary-Alice said. “We’d finished viewing the rushes when Richard found us to deliver the news, so Gloria decided to head back without having dinner. We—I mean Gary isn’t happy with the scene between Roger and Todd that was filmed at Haggerman’s on Monday morning, so he wants to go back tomorrow and redo it. I hope that’s okay?”

  “Elizabeth and Lucinda have arranged to cater at the bungalow colony tomorrow,” Velvet said.

  “It’ll work. We need the early-morning light for the scene on the dock with Todd and Roger, and then we can head over to the bungalow colony for the rest of the day.”

  “Whatever you need,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary-Alice said. “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about moviemaking troubles right now.”

  “Elizabeth?” Velvet said. “What do you want to do?”

  “I need to get back to the hotel. There’s no point in me staying here. They’ve given Olivia something so she’ll sleep the night through.” I became aware of Dave, standing slightly outside our circle, watching and listening. “Chief, do you need me any more tonight?”

  “No. You go home. I want to have another word with the doctor and then go to Haggerman’s to talk to this room-service waiter.”

  “What room-service waiter?” Velvet asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Where are the state police?” I asked him.