“What do you mean not natural causes?” he said. “What did that cop say to you?”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing, but he’s wondering how whatever Elias consumed got into his food.”

  Matthew grunted. “Small-town cops. Nothing better to do, trying to make themselves seem important. No one murdered Elias, Elizabeth. If it had happened in Hollywood, the line of suspects would reach around the block. Isn’t that right, Freemont?”

  “Not everyone loved Mr. T.,” the chauffeur agreed as the lights of the hospital faded behind us.

  “But not here,” Matthew said. “Everyone here might not have loved Elias either, but they needed him to finish this picture.”

  “What’s going to happen now?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll carry on unless I hear otherwise. Gary’s more than capable of finishing a day’s filming. The studio executives will meet in the morning, LA time.”

  I leaned forward. “Freemont, when you drove Mr. Theropodous to Haggerman’s for the dinner this evening, did he have anything to eat in the car? Do you know if he had lunch earlier from the catering truck?”

  Freemont chuckled. “Don’t know ’bout lunch, but as for the car, I can swear to that, Mrs. Grady. No. Mr. T. didn’t smoke, drink, or eat in the car, and he wouldn’t let anyone else. If I wanted my lunch or supper while I was waiting, I had to stand outside, sometimes in the pouring rain or driving snow. Couldn’t risk a crumb falling between the seats. Remember the time he threw John Ashcroft out of the car in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard for lighting up a smoke, Mr. Oswald?”

  “Yes, I remember. John was in a towering rage. Swore he’d never work with Elias again. Next day the opening week’s numbers came in for Dying in the Moonlight, and John never mentioned the incident again.”

  We turned into the private drive leading to Kennelwood Hotel and drove up the hill. The trees closed around us, and the powerful headlights lit up the narrow road as the leafy trees formed an arch overhead. We turned a bend, the trees fell away, and in front of us the bright lights of the hotel filled the night, as though beckoning us to approach. Kennelwood Hotel is older, bigger, grander than Haggerman’s, but I like to think it’s not any better. Because they have more guests and a larger entertainment budget, their show doesn’t end at midnight but carries on into the wee hours. Dance music leaked out of the second-floor windows as Freemont pulled up to the lobby entrance. Matthew told him he could turn in for the night, and together the producer and I walked into the hotel. The chandelier hanging from the second-floor ceiling threw sparks into the water spraying from the fountain in the center of the lobby. The room was decorated entirely in gold and marble: gold curtains tied back by gold tassels, gold gilt on the ashtray stands, golden fabric covering the couches and chairs, imitation marble statues on either side of the grand marble staircase. Fans churned the warm, stuffy, smoke-filled air.

  All the lights were on, the lobby bar was crowded with men, many of them wearing white trousers under dark blue jackets laden with gold braid and double rows of gold buttons. Elegantly dressed mixed groups clustered around lobby tables, and the sounds of music and laughter drifted down the stairs.

  I assumed Mary-Alice would have been put up in staff quarters or one of the cheapest rooms Kennelwood has, but instead she was in the room next to Elias’s.

  “He likes her—liked her, I guess I should say,” Matthew said when the night clerk had given us the room number, “to be at his beck and call, never mind the time. Elias always said he did most of his best thinking at night.”

  We got into the elevator. “Fourth floor,” Matthew said to the uniformed operator, and we ascended.

  Matthew knocked on the door of room 404. No answer. I put my ear against the door. All quiet. He knocked again, then he called, “Mary-Alice, it’s Matthew Oswald here with Elizabeth Grady. I’m sorry about the time, but we have to speak to you.”

  Something inside the room shuffled, a floorboard creaked, and then the door opened a crack, and Mary-Alice peered out. Her hair was wound into a network of tight pins, a scarf tied around her head to keep the pins in place, and her face was white with night cream. She blinked rapidly. “What’s going on? Is something the matter?” She peered into the hallway behind us. “Elias?”

  “Can we come in?” I asked.

  “I’m not dressed.”

  “I see that, and I’m sorry, but we would like to talk to you.”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  The elevator bell pinged, and I turned to see Dave Dawson heading toward us. “I’m in time, I see,” he said. “Good. Are you Mary-Alice Renzetti?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m Chief Dawson, Summervale police. I have some questions for you.”

  Mary-Alice looked at me, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Please,” I said. “We can’t talk in the hallway.”

  She stepped back and slowly opened the door. Hers was a nice room, in the center of the hotel, facing the lake. Two single beds and a private bathroom. One of the beds was rumpled, the cover thrown off, the pillow depressed. The other was neatly made, the orange-and-brown blankets and pillows undisturbed. The drapes were closed, the wardrobe and dresser drawers shut, Mary-Alice’s hairbrush, pocketbook, notepad, and pencil neatly laid out on top. One pair of shoes was tucked under the window. A glass of water, a book, and a portable alarm clock sat on the small table between the beds.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered to Dave. “I thought you were going to talk to the doctor some more.”

  “Changed my mind,” he said. The room had one chair, and it faced toward the window. Dave picked up the chair, turned it around, and said, “Please, Miss Renzetti, have a seat.”

  Mary-Alice sat. She wore a pair of plain brown flannel pajamas, well worn and slightly tattered around the hems, which must be too warm for the humid night. She ignored the two men and spoke to me, “What’s happened?”

  Neither of the men said anything, so I answered. “I’m terribly sorry to have to tell you this, but Mr. Theropodous died this evening.”

  “Died?”

  I took both her hands in mine. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  She took a deep breath and stood up. “Goodness. That is a shock. That’ll disrupt the production schedule. I assume, Mr. Oswald, you’ll be in touch with the studio for their instructions?”

  “I called them earlier.”

  “Good. Thank you for coming to tell me, Mrs. Grady. It was kind of you.” She smiled at me.

  She actually smiled.

  “You did hear what I said?”

  “Elias died. That’s unfortunate, but I’m confident the studio’ll see sense and continue with the filming.”

  “That’s your only concern?”

  “Are you expecting me to weep and wail and rend my garments, Mrs. Grady? Are you, Chief Dawson? If so, you’re going to be disappointed. Elias was my employer, not my friend.”

  “You’ll be out of a job.”

  “A minor concern. I’ve amassed a considerable amount of savings in the time I’ve worked for him. Now I’m free to do what I want with my life. I might even be able to offer some assistance to the new director. Why have you involved the police?”

  “You haven’t asked how he died,” Dave said.

  “His heart, wasn’t it? I left Haggerman’s before he did, got a ride with Gary and Rebecca. Rebecca went up to bed immediately, but Gary and I stopped for a quick drink in the bar. We were there when Richard Kennelwood came in and told us Elias had fallen ill and been taken to the hospital. Is that not what happened?”

  “I’ve been told you fetched several drinks for Mr. . . . the deceased over the course of the evening,” Dave said. “Is that true?”

  Mary-Alice’s eyes narrowed and she studied him. “I did everything for Elias other than cut his meat for him. I always do.”

  Dave Dawson straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Mary-Alice Renzetti, I am—”

  “One minute, please,” I said. “Chief, might I have a word?”

  “No, Mrs. Grady, you might not. This isn’t a good time.”

  “Won’t take a moment. Please? We can talk in the hallway.”

  “Mary-Alice and I’ll stay here.” Matthew gave me a quick nod that I took to be approval.

  “Make it quick,” Dave said. We stepped into the hallway and he shut the door.

  “You can’t arrest Mary-Alice,” I said.

  “I don’t need your permission. But, because of the help you tried to be on the Westenham case, although I didn’t need it, I’ll do you the favor of asking why not.”

  “Because you don’t know the poison, if it was poison, was in the drinks. It might have been in his food. It might have been administered some other way. We . . . you . . . don’t know for sure, yet, but most of all because even if it was in his drink, almost everyone there had the opportunity to slip something into Elias’s glass. I told you Mary-Alice had been fetching his drinks all night, but I had time to think it over in the car as we drove here, trying to remember what I observed earlier tonight. After the group went down to the ballroom, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, but I did keep my eye on them. Earlier, at the private dinner, I had no other duties, so I was paying attention. On both occasions, people were coming and going the entire time. Particularly before and after dinner, Elias left his drinks unattended. Before dinner, he went to the men’s room at least once and left his glass on a side table when he did so. After the dinner, in the ballroom, he danced a couple of dances, and he joined the men around the bar.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he wasn’t watching his glass and neither was anyone else. Even Mary-Alice had to go to the ladies’ room occasionally, and she wasn’t seated at the main table in the ballroom. People came and went, some got up to dance and others sat down. Judy Rae, the singer, sat at their table for a while, and some of our guests were bold enough to come up and ask the ladies for a dance. People leaned over the table to be heard if the music was loud.”

  The elevator pinged, the doors slid open, and a couple, laughing uproariously, emerged. They were in evening clothes; she carried her shoes in her hands, and his tie was looped around his forehead. They spotted us—me in my frilly green dress, Dave in his rumpled uniform, and the laughter died. They edged warily to the far side of the hallway, pressing against the wall, and scurried on by.

  “She’s mighty cool about his death,” Dave said when the couple had gone into their room and slammed the door behind them.

  “She’s not displaying the behavior you anticipated, you mean. Did you expect her to collapse in shock and grief? Please don’t assume all women will always behave in certain predefined ways. We’re not entirely predictable all the time, you know. Mary-Alice didn’t like the man, and she isn’t going to pretend to mourn him. I would have thought that sort of honesty would make your job as a policeman easier, not harder.”

  He studied my face for a long time. He said nothing, so I pressed my point. “How long does it take poison to take effect? Can you estimate when it was consumed? That would help narrow down the time frame. Maybe,” I added hopefully, “it was something he had before coming to Haggerman’s. He probably had breakfast here, and the catering truck provided drinks and lunch for the crew.”

  “Did you handle that? The catering?”

  “No. They came from Kennelwood. From here.”

  “Depends on what was used and what the quantity was,” Dave said at last. “We won’t know that for a few days. Not until the results come back.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, Elizabeth. You win. I won’t arrest Miss Renzetti. At this time. June, my wife, is always telling me I leap to conclusions, particularly about what she’s thinking, and I’m usually wrong.”

  He opened the door to Mary-Alice’s room. The drapes had been pulled aside, and Matthew stood at the window, staring out into the night. Mary-Alice sat at the dressing table, writing in her notebook.

  Dave cleared his throat. “Miss Renzetti, I need you to think over everything that happened tonight, and let me know if you saw anything suspicious, or can think of any reason anyone wanted your boss dead.”

  “I can think of plenty of reasons.” She waved her pencil at him. “Mr. Oswald can give you more. But not on the part of anyone who’s in the Catskills at the present. They all need this picture to be a success. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a great deal to do to prepare for tomorrow.”

  “You’re going to keep working?” I asked.

  “I’ve asked Mary-Alice to give us a hand until we get things back on track,” Matthew said.

  Mary-Alice returned her attention to her notebook, and we left her to it.

  “I’ll be at Haggerman’s in the morning,” Dave said to Matthew. “I want to see everyone’s reaction when you tell them the news.”

  We called the elevator and descended to the lobby. Dave put on his hat and headed out into the night. Matthew let out a long sigh. “What a mess.” He walked away.

  Three men staggered past him coming out of the bar, arms around one another, singing a sea shanty. They were young, their faces well tanned and their hair sun-streaked. They were dressed in double-breasted navy jackets, and one of them wore a captain’s peaked hat. Participants in the regatta week.

  I was about to leave, when I remembered I didn’t have a ride. I groaned. My girdle was killing me, the bodice of my dress was too tight, I was desperate to get my shoes and stockings off, and I was absolutely starving.

  “Elizabeth!” Richard Kennelwood crossed the lobby floor at a rapid pace. He’d taken off his jacket and tie. “I got word you needed to speak to me urgently. What are you doing here? Is everything okay? How’s Elias?”

  “I left that message ages ago, and you only got it now? Sorry, forget I asked. None of my business.”

  “Todd, Gary, Glenn, and Roger decided to have a hand of poker before turning in and talked me into joining them. One hand leads to another. One glass of scotch leads to another also. A bellhop finally found me, and I was on my way to a phone when I saw you.”

  “Just as well,” I said. “When I left the message I forgot I’m not staying in my house tonight. Gloria’s there, and I’m with Velvet, and her room doesn’t have a telephone.” I yawned. “Sorry.”

  “You’re dead on your feet.”

  “Bad choice of words.”

  “Can I get you a drink? Bar’s still open. Or maybe a coffee or hot chocolate?”

  “Thank you, but no. I need a ride home. The reason I called you . . .” I glanced around. In the time I’d been upstairs, the evening had come to an end and most of the revelers had staggered off. The lights had been turned low, and the spacious lobby was almost empty. A handful of late drinkers had pulled chairs around tables. The sleepy night clerk leaned against the reception desk, and the glassy-eyed bellhop shook his head in an attempt to keep himself awake. Slow dance music, the type to see people off to their beds, drifted down from above.

  Richard led me to a quiet corner. “You went to the hospital with Elias. What happened?”

  “He died.”

  “Died? I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Not just died, but the police and the doctor suspect he was murdered.”

  “Murdered? That can’t be. I was there myself when it happened. So were you. He had a heart attack and fell down the stairs and hit his head.”

  “Not his heart, and the fall didn’t kill him, according to the doctor at the hospital. He was poisoned. Dave Dawson has called in the state police.”

  Richard’s handsome face was a picture of shock. “Surely the doctor made a mistake.”

  “I’d like to hope so, but . . . I called you because if he was poisoned, it was by something he ate or drank today. Yesterday, I mean. Did he have breakfast here? Do you know if he ate anything off the catering truck at lunch?”

  All the blood drained from Richard’s face, and he stepped back with a groan. “I don’t know about lunch, but it’s likely he had breakfast. Can poison take that long to take effect?”

  “I’ve no idea. The police will be looking into that. And”—I lowered my voice although no one was near us—“word’s going to spread. And fast. I saw Martin McEnery from the Gazette at the hospital. I suspect someone phoned him and told him what was going on.”

  “That’s all we need.”

  “Haggerman’s will be in the worse position,” I said. “Elias had dinner at my place. Dinner, drinks, dessert, and he collapsed in full view of a substantial number of people.” I yawned again, and Richard grabbed my arm.

  “Come on. Nothing either of us can do until tomorrow. I’ll talk to my kitchen staff, and I suggest you do as well. They need to be prepared for a lot of hard questions. I’ll drive you home.”

  “You don’t need to do that, you must be tired too.”

  “I’d like to take you. It’s not far.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Who won?”

  “Won?”

  “At poker.”

  He grinned at me as he took my arm. “Elizabeth, I never lose in my own house.”

  Chapter 8

  Richard pulled up to the main entrance to my hotel, and I waved off his offer to walk me to my temporary accommodation. It would have been nice to have his company, to enjoy that walk I’d been thinking about earlier, but there would be, I hoped, plenty of time for pleasant evening strolls over the rest of the summer.

  Lights shone from inside the hotel, along the veranda, and above the paths, but no one was around. As I walked up the hill to the staff cabins, the bright lights fell away and only the occasional dim bulb illuminated the trail. The forest closed around me and I enjoyed the simple and all too rare pleasure of being wrapped in silence. The worst of the heat of the day had broken, and the night air was warm and soft, full of the scent of the woods. On my right the creek rushed over rocks toward the lake, and behind me, small waves beat against the shoreline. Somewhere out on the lake a loon called. A bat flew overhead, and small animals scurried into the undergrowth at the approach of my footsteps.