Violet was silent for a moment. “You’re probably right.” She nodded. “We’ve got to figure this out—there’s a murderer among us!” She turned to go back into the lounge.
I grabbed her arm. “Vi, you can’t tell anyone. Let us handle it. We know what we’re doing.” I glanced at Mac for backup.
“We wouldn’t want to let the murderer know we’re onto him, or her,” Mac said.
“Oh, of course. But I can tell Rose, right?” she said to Mac and then turned to me, her finger already pointing in a menacing fashion. “You can’t suspect your own mother of murder?”
“Shhh! No, I don’t suspect Mom,” I said. “But let’s just keep this between us until we can figure out what’s going on.”
“Okay, got it.” Vi nodded, and then winked.
I looked at the ceiling and hoped it was too dark for her to notice.
“What’s going on?” Wally emerged out of the shadowy hallway.
“Ms. Carlisle is definitely deceased,” Mac said.
“Oh, no.” Wally put his hand up to his neck. “How did she die?”
“We think she hit her head,” Mac said, “but we’ll have to wait until the police get here to examine the evidence.”
“That could be a while,” Wally said. “The emergency weather radio says the snowstorm has stalled over Southwestern Michigan. If the phones are already out, it’s not likely we’ll get a call out anytime soon.”
“How did you know the phones were out?” I asked.
“I tried to call our head of maintenance earlier when you were upstairs. His assistant is down in the basement working on the generator, but I thought if we could call Gus, he could tell us how to fix it.” Wally leaned closer to me and whispered, “The new guy is not that good.”
“Wally, maybe you and Vi can go back in the lounge and try to keep everyone calm,” Mac said. “I need to talk to Jessica and figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Sure, okay.” Wally held his arm out for Violet and escorted her down the hall as if they were heading to dinner in an English country house.
“We can’t leave a body sitting up there all night,” I said to Mac.
He nodded. “I know. And I don’t know how to keep everyone out of there. I’d post a guard, but I don’t know whom to trust besides you, our mothers, and maybe your aunt. They can’t stand guard through the night.”
“No, Vi is likely to see the ghost and send up an alarm . . . if she doesn’t fall asleep on duty.”
“This sounds awful, but I’m tempted to wrap the body and put it out in the snow to preserve it. We know the general time of death is between the time we saw her before dinner and an hour later when the body was discovered.”
I suddenly felt queasy and leaned my back against the wall. No matter how many times I had dealt with violent death, there was always a moment when it snuck up on me. Mac pulled me toward him and we stood, leaning against one another more than embracing, for a long moment.
I took a deep breath and pushed away from him. “We should find Jessica and see if they have any large sheets of plastic—like a new shower curtain. Maybe there’s an outbuilding that we can put the body in that will keep it cold.”
“Good idea,” Mac said. He grabbed my hand and squeezed gently.
I followed Mac up the stairs, and back in the direction of the side hall where Jessica had led her mother. She turned the corner just as we got to the turret stairs doorway.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “I just got Mom calmed down. She’s resting in her room. Did you get in touch with the police?”
“The phone lines are down,” I said.
“Oh, I thought . . .” She put her hand to her head. “This is all so awful. Are the guests okay?”
“We sent Wally and Violet in to keep everyone calm,” Mac said.
“I don’t know what to do,” Jessica said.
I stepped forward to touch her arm. “We’re so sorry, Jessica.”
“Jessica?” The chef strode up to us down the dark hallway. “I just heard about Clarissa. What’s going on?”
“She . . . she’s dead.” Jessica threw herself into René’s arms and sobbed.
Mac shifted his weight and I could see him sizing up the situation.
“How can she be dead?” René asked. “I just saw her at dinner.”
Jessica said something unintelligible into his shoulder. His brow wrinkled and he rubbed her back.
“Mr. Sartin, we need to secure the room and the body for when the police arrive.”
Jessica winced when Mac said “the body.”
“Police? I doubt anyone will get through tonight,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Jess.”
“Is there an outbuilding or someplace we can store the . . . Clarissa . . . to keep her cold?” Mac asked.
Jessica pulled herself together and nodded. “The garden shed would work. We just built it this past spring to store equipment. There’s plenty of room and it has a dead bolt.”
“I’m sorry, but we think it would be best to put her out there,” I said.
Jessica’s voice shook as she said, “Okay.”
“We need to keep people out of her room so no one can interfere with evidence,” Mac said.