“I don’t know. I’ll go take a look.” Tug left to check on the generator while Ninette and Gran’ helped the guests with their flashlights. Georgia One held his under his chin and made a face.
“Arghgh, I’m a zombie.”
“Dude, that’s awesome,” Georgia Two said as he and Three broke out laughing.
“Stop it, that’s not funny,” Jan snapped.
“Arghggh.”
“I said stop it.”
“That wasn’t me, I swear,” Georgia One replied. Maggie flashed her light around the guests and finally landed on Hal Clabber, whose face was purple and hideously distorted. Angela and Suzy screamed, as did Hal’s wife Beverly.
“Hal!”
“Arghgh,” Hal choked out. Then his eyes rolled to the back of his head, an enormous shudder engulfed his body, and he did a face plant to the floor.
“Everyone, out of the way,” Kyle ordered the others, who drew back but didn’t leave the room, frozen in either fear or fascination. Kyle dropped to his knees, flipped Hal over, and began performing CPR.
Maggie grabbed the phone and dialed 911. “Help! I’m calling from Crozat, we have a very sick guest.”
“Tug, Tug!” Ninette yelled to her husband, who raced back into the house. Moments later, an ambulance roared up to the front of Crozat. Two EMTs ran in and took over from Kyle, but it became clear that lifesaving measures were unnecessary because there was no life to save.
“Hal, Hal!” Mrs. Clabber cried. She grabbed Maggie and drew blood as she dug her long nails into Maggie’s wrist. “My pills, in my purse, I need my pills.”
Being that Beverly was the kind of woman who never strayed too far from her handbag, it was dangling from a purse holder she’d attached to a nearby lamp table. Maggie fumbled through it and pulled out bottles of Xanax, Zoloft, and Abilify. No wonder she’s always smiling, Maggie thought, then snapped out of it and handed the bottles to Beverly. The woman’s hands shook as she tried to open them.
“Here, let me help.” Maggie opened the bottles, and Beverly grabbed them from her. She quickly choked down several pills.
“Wait, you need water.” Maggie, guided by her flashlight, found a water carafe on the bar and poured a tall glass. “Here, Mrs. Clabber.”
Beverly grabbed the glass with one hand. Then she clutched her chest with the other.
“My heart,” she gasped. Then Beverly made an awful choking noise, frothed at the mouth, and collapsed onto the floor next to the late Mr. Clabber. The EMTs instantly switched their focus to her, but it was obvious that the task was equally hopeless. Mrs. Clabber was as dead as her husband. As the EMTs notified the coroner’s office, a dazed Maggie realized something.
Beverly Clabber had finally stopped smiling.
Chapter Four
Given Police Chief Rufus Durand’s usual slothful gait, it was surprising how fast he and a few of his officers showed up at Crozat.
“Probably to revel in our bad luck,” Maggie muttered to Gran’ as Tug filled Ru in on the Clabbers’ deaths. After discovering that the main house’s blackout had been caused by bad fuses and not the storm, Tug restored power. Meanwhile, Ninette tended to the guests in the kitchen. Liquor calmed all of them fairly quickly, helped by the fact that no one really knew or liked the Clabbers, so the general emotion was a surface shock rather than deep sorrow. The Butlers, who’d come downstairs to get flashlights, joined the others around the kitchen’s large oak table and were filled in on the night’s startling events, as were Carrie and Lachlan Ryker. The Clabbers’ simultaneous demise was rapidly turning into the kind of bizarre story that would elevate each guest’s vacation anecdotes way above a friend’s routine stories.
“Tape off this room and the one where the Clabbers were staying,” Ru instructed a rookie officer, as the couple was bagged and loaded onto the coroner’s gurneys. “I don’t want anyone touching anything until the coroner’s report comes back.”
“Good heavens, you’re being rather dramatic, Ru,” Gran’ said. “It’s tragic those poor people died, but do you really need to turn this into some television episode?”
“Just doing my job, ma’am. Two people dying within minutes of each other could be some kind of crazy coincidence. Or it could be something else.”
“What, like murder?” Maggie scoffed. Ru didn’t say no and Maggie got a sick feeling in her stomach.
“Stop it, Magnolia,” Gran’ reprimanded her. “You’re being as ridiculous as he is.”
“Man, I am working up a powerful thirst here,” Ru said as he leaned against a wall and watched his underlings scurry around Crozat.
“Tug, why don’t you mix Rufus a Sazerac?” Grand-mère said.
Tug didn’t respond, but he fixed a drink for Rufus and handed it to him without a word. Rufus took a swig, closed his eyes, and nodded. “Yeah, that’s right good. You keep mixing Sazzies like this and Crozat might come back from the Katrina dead.”
Maggie resisted the urge to grab Ru’s drink and dump it on his head. She noticed her father clenching and unclenching his fists and hastened to change the subject before either he or she exploded. “Are your guys going to take much longer, Ru? It’s been a rough night for all of us.”
Rufus held out his glass for a refill. Tug mixed him a fresh drink, and then the police chief motioned for Gran’, Tug, and Maggie to follow him out of the room and onto the veranda. The worst of the storm had passed, but a light rain still fell.
“Now, Maggie here happened to mention murder,” Ru said as he chomped on an ice cube. Maggie winced. She could never understand how people enjoyed chewing up something that cold and hard. Rufus addressed Gran’. “You may be right, Mrs. Crozat. Me and Maggie may be making a big deal over nothing. On the other hand, what kind of law enforcement officer would I be if I didn’t at least pursue that avenue of investigation?”
“This is outrageous,” Gran’ fumed. “There hasn’t been a murder at Crozat in over a hundred years. Well, that we know of. Frederick Crozat was found hanging from one of the oak trees around the turn of the old century, but they never did determine whether that was suicide or Arvin Johnson taking revenge for Fredrick bedding his mistress.”
“My concern is the Clabbers,” Rufus said. “I’m gonna get the coroner’s office to put a rush on the autopsies. In the meantime, no one leaves Pelican until we interview every last guest, and that could take some time seeing as how shorthanded we are at Pelican PD.”
“What?” Maggie exclaimed as Tug groaned and buried his head in his hands. “You sonuva—”
“Maggie,” her father warned.
Gran’ pulled herself up to what was left of her full height, having shrunk by four inches over the years. Still, with heels, she managed to be eye-to-eye with Rufus, who skimmed 5'6" on a good day. “If this is standard procedure, that’s one thing, young man,” Gran’ said. “But if you’re milking it to make trouble for us, that is just plain bad manners.”
“Thanks to budget cuts, we genuinely do have a personnel shortage at the station, ma’am,” Rufus responded. “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying this a little.”
“You are a giant, steaming—”
“Maggie,” Tug said, his tone sharper.
“It’s all right, Mr. Crozat,” Rufus said. “I’ll chalk it up to the situation. But like I said before, I got a job to do. Right, Maggie?”
She ignored Rufus, and he took off in his squad car, kicking up dust and gravel. But Maggie knew he had a point. And she also realized Ru was brighter than she usually gave him credit for.
“Well, I guess I better break it to our visitors,” Tug said.
“I’d be surprised if any of them were terribly upset,” Gran’ said. “Especially if they’ll be staying gratis.”
“Gran’, we can’t afford to do that,” Maggie protested.