“No!” I looked at Derek in dismay and the muscles of his jaw tightened in response.
All he needed was another weak-kneed Wainwright woman on his hands. But what could I say? I couldn’t stand the sight of blood and, admittedly, had fainted on more than one occasion. Savannah had even more right to faint, but that didn’t mean I would let her.
Frankly, the stronger reason why I’d felt woozy was because for a minute there, seeing Savannah kneeling on the floor in front of the bloodied body of Baxter Cromwell, I’d experienced an alarming case of déjà vu.
I’d flashed back to the night I found my old bookbinding mentor, Abraham Karastovsky, dying in a pool of his own blood. Kneeling next to him, I’d discovered he was barely alive and had tried to revive him, but failed. With his last breath, he had whispered the clue that ultimately helped me solve his murder.
Derek had found me kneeling there with Abraham’s blood on my hands. I’d taken one look at those red smears on my palms and blacked out completely.
I shook the memory away.
“I’m fine,” Savannah muttered finally. “It’s just…all that blood. And Baxter. I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked again, as gently as I could.
She swallowed some more water and I took the glass from her to refill it.
“I—I went to the ladies’ room while everyone was saying good night. It took me a while to wash up. I was exhausted, but I wanted to clean myself up a little. You know how it is after a long night of cooking. I felt like food was jammed into every one of my pores.”
“Mm, nice image,” I said, being careful not to mention that I had no idea how it was after a long night of cooking. I didn’t cook, remember?
She granted me a wan smile. “My food is healthier and I use less fat, but I still need to wash my face at the end of the night. Anyway, there’s a small couch in the ladies’ room, so I sat down and closed my eyes for a minute.”
“Did you fall asleep?”
“I didn’t think I did.” She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Maybe I did fall asleep for a few minutes. I must’ve, because when I came out here, all the lights in the place were off.”
“When you left to go to the ladies’ room, who was still here?”
She thought for a moment. “Peter, Kevin, Baxter, Margot, and Monty.”
“That’s almost everyone, isn’t it?”
“Is it? Wait.” She thought for a moment. “Colette was still here, but she was just leaving. Raoul had left an hour earlier. He wasn’t feeling well, so he took a cab back to the hotel. Colette had their rental car and I was thinking of asking her for a ride back to your place, but she’d been so cranky all day that I didn’t want to spend another minute with her.”
“Why was she cranky?”
Savannah lifted her shoulder. “Can’t say for sure, but those two weren’t getting along very well.”
“Raoul and Colette? Are you kidding? Who doesn’t get along with Raoul?”
“His wife, apparently.” She met my gaze and almost smirked. “I know, right? Raoul is such a doll. She must be nuts.”
I noticed Derek’s sideways glance at us.
“We’re going off topic,” I said. “Let’s see. Was anyone else still around? Any waiters or kitchen staff?”
She stared at the ceiling and tried to think. “One of the bartenders stayed to serve us drinks, but after a while he cleaned up and left. A few of the kitchen staff were still here, prepping for tomorrow. But we stood around talking for so long that they all left, too. It was getting really late. By the time I took off to the ladies’ room, everyone but the chefs had left.”
“Okay, and how long do you think you were in there?”
“Maybe eight or ten minutes?”
“And you came out and the lights were off. What did you do?”
“It was a little creepy,” she said. “I called out ‘Hello,’ but nobody answered. Then I saw the kitchen light was on, so I went in there.”
“And Baxter was on the floor?”
She swallowed with difficulty. I’d forgotten to get her more water, so Derek went behind the bar, found a full bottle of water in the refrigerator, and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” She twisted off the cap and took a big gulp. “Yes, he was on the floor.”
“Was he dead?”
“No.” Her shoulders shook and she rubbed her arms to stave off the chills. “He was still gasping for air, so I didn’t think, I just grabbed the knife and pulled it out.”
“And that’s when we walked in?”
“Well, a few seconds later.” She took another drink of water. “He gasped and choked first, then, yeah. He died.”
“I’m sorry.” I reached over and took her hand.
She seemed lost in her own world for a minute, then said, “That fish knife was his pride and joy. He told us how he found it in Singapore.”