“I just wanted to go over the sequence of events when you found Ms. Lander,” Sergeant French said, taking out his pad and pen. I hadn’t noticed before how big his head was compared to the rest of him. I repeated how Dinah, Commander, and I had gone to the beach to look for driftwood in the fog. We’d found the remnants of the fire first, and then Izabelle. The fog had made it hard to see, and we’d almost tripped over her.
“And then what happened?” he asked, scribbling something down.
“We thought she was still alive, but none of us had a phone with us. Commander Blaine said he’d go back to Asilomar and call 911. My friend and I stayed with Izabelle until the paramedics came.”
“So Commander Blaine never came back to the beach?” Sergeant French asked.
“He came with the paramedics. After he called, he waited for the ambulance at the back entrance to Asilomar, so he could help them find us.” I watched as he wrote something else down.
“Did anybody mention to you that they were on the beach with Ms. Landers?” He said it like an afterthought, but I thought it was an effort to catch me off guard in case I’d been withholding any information.
I shook my head in response and tried to see what he’d written down, but he did a good job of covering up his scribbles. “Are you going over your report because you changed your mind and think there was foul play involved?” I asked in a low voice.
Ever the community-minded police officer, he was careful about his tone and word choice. There was nothing condescending in the way he told me what they had determined from the information they had. “No, Ms. Pink, no foul play. The medical examiner has ruled it accidental. We think that small purse was so lightweight, Ms. Landers didn’t notice she’d dropped it. She was carrying the shopping bag with the s’more ingredients and maybe even some wood she’d found for the fire. Commander Blaine confirmed that each bag had enough to make two s’mores. He also said the bags were marked, but admitted there could have been a mistake. We think there was a certain frenzy on her part to eat the sweets, and she might not have noticed the peanut butter. It is, after all, the same color as graham crackers, and according to Commander Blaine the blocks of chocolate stuck to it and probably covered it up. We checked, and the standard ingredients for s’mores are graham cracker squares, blocks of milk chocolate, and roasted marshmallows. There was a whole s’more on the beach, and we assume she ate the other one. At some point she must have detected the peanut butter and realized she didn’t have the bag with the EpiPen. It only takes a short time for anaphylactic shock to set in, and she was on the beach alone in all that fog. It appears that it was just the perfect storm of an accident.”
“Or the perfect crime,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Ms. Pink,” he said, straining to keep his friendly expression from fading, “I hate to pull rank on you, but I’m a professional, and other professionals like the medical examiner and the ER doctor all agree that Izabelle Landers died because of an allergic reaction from something ingested by her own hand.” He started to go, then turned back. “Think about it, Ms. Pink, what kind of person would try to kill somebody with a s’more? And how would you get someone to eat it against their will?”
Okay, maybe I didn’t have the answer to either of those questions, but I could have provided Sergeant French with a list of suspects if he wasn’t so sure the case was closed. I wouldn’t have included Adele-even with all her shortcomings I didn’t believe she would kill anybody. Commander Blaine knew all about the contents of the s’mores, and he had admitted to being slighted by Izabelle. I really didn’t want to believe it was him because even though Dinah was still fighting it, I thought there were definite possibilities for them. Spenser Futterman belonged on the list, too. No matter what Sergeant French had said about the shadow Dinah and I had seen being a crow, I was just about a hundred percent sure it was Spenser. After all, the maid had identified him as the one who left the manuscript pages.
Would there have been any point to telling Sergeant French what the maid said? Probably not. And what about Jeen? She seemed to take Izabelle’s success so well, but maybe it was all an act. Then there was Jym. Could there have been something between him and Izabelle? Maybe Jeen was trying to cover up something when she made a point that she was sure that neither she nor her husband had been on the beach with Izabelle. It was certainly odd that they had lied to Sergeant French and said they didn’t know Izabelle before the weekend.
The conversation in the dining hall had dropped off during Sergeant French’s visit, and as he left, I noticed the volume came back up. I helped myself to a cup of coffee from the vacuum pot on the lazy Susan, but it was lukewarm and not the kind of industrial-strength caffeine hit I needed. A red-eye from the coffee wagon sounded a lot better. Dinah had left her charges, and stopped between me and Sheila.
“What was that about?” she asked, nodding her head toward Sergeant French as he went out the dining hall door. I mentioned him asking about the sequence of events for his report and that he was still trying to find out if someone was on the beach with Izabelle. I noticed Sheila’s eyes getting rounder as she listened.
“He must be questioning everyone,” she said.
“And requestioning, too,” I added. “It’s obvious nobody has admitted to being on the beach with her, and he’s trying to get tricky now and see if someone admitted it to someone else.”
I noticed Jym and Jeen had gotten up from their table. They had rounded up their knitters and were heading for the exit. At the next table Commander Blaine collected some tools he’d used to demonstrate carving an eggplant to look like a penguin. Something struck me about the way he put the tools in the canvas tote bag hanging on the back of his chair. It was the same canvas tote he’d used to collect the driftwood. I stared so long Dinah turned to see what I was looking at. And then suddenly I got it.
“French was right. She wasn’t alone,” I said. It all came back to me now, and I reminded Dinah how we’d found the remnants of the fire first. “Commander was all upset because someone had left two of his wire forks on the beach. He used one of them to pull the partially burned s’mores bag out of the hot ashes.” I watched as Commander clutched the bag and got up. “And then he put them in that canvas bag.” We were all staring at Commander now. “I guess finding Izabelle made me forget about the forks. Do you remember him picking them up?” I stopped to think about the implications.
“Yes, now that you mention it, I do recall him fussing about the two forks and I remember the bag,” Dinah said, growing more excited.
“The question is, was he really concerned about collecting his tools and cleaning up litter, or was he trying to get rid of evidence?”
“Great! It figures the guy who likes me turns out to be a murderer.” Dinah groaned.
“Maybe I should call Sergeant French and tell him,” I said, but both Dinah and Sheila shook their heads. “Right, he already thinks I have murder on the brain. Besides, the marshmallow forks have probably been thoroughly cleaned and mixed in with all the others. So, what’s the point?”
Dinah looked back toward her people. They were still in their seats, obviously waiting for something. “I have to go,” she said with a guilty furrow of her brow. “I promised to take them on an outdoor writing exercise. It’s just a little something extra I thought I’d do. They are so enthusiastic. Did I tell you how much I’m loving this workshop?”
I laughed. “You might have mentioned it a few times. Go, go, I don’t want to stand in the way of anything that’s going well.” I took a sip of the now cold coffee and made a face. A red-eye was definitely a priority. The dining room was clearing out. Adele and her crocheters separated. They headed outside and she cruised by our table. Sheila’s shoulders sprang into a hunch as Adele stopped next to her.