Brutal Brûlée (Lexy Baker Cozy Mystery Series Book 11) by Leighann Dobbs Read Free Book Online

room after Karen gave him the drink.”
    “I know,” Jack said.
    “Well, if no one went into his room, and it was chained from the inside, then who poisoned him and staged it as a suicide by taking his pills?” Nans asked.
    A sharp intake of breath came from the back of the crowd. Lexy turned to see Mrs. Pendrake’s pale face staring at them. “Glory be! There’s only one explanation. It must have been the ghost of Wellington Manse.”

Chapter Nine
    “ T hat wasn’t quite what I was thinking.” Nans frowned at Mrs. Pendrake.
    “But if it wasn’t the ghost, then how did the door get chained? You can’t do that from the outside,” Helen pointed out.
    Nans leaned toward Helen and whispered in a low voice, “This place is loaded with film crew people. They must be savvy about technology. Maybe someone doctored the video.”
    Jack overheard them. “That’s an idea.” He turned to Violet. “Who can get into this office?”
    “Nearly anyone during the day. At night, it’s locked up.” Violet pointed to a shiny lock on the top of the door. “I had to have a new lock installed as the original key had gone missing with the rest of them.”
    “There’s another solution, too,” Ida said. “Maybe someone switched the pill bottle after dinner. After he shook it around and everyone saw it was full, they could have pickpocketed it and replaced it with a container that had no pills.”
    “But don’t you think Leonard would have noticed that all his pills were gone when he got to his room?” Helen asked.
    “He was old. Maybe he forgot how many pills he had or thought he had the wrong bottle.” Ida slid her eyes toward Helen. “I know Helen here has several bottles in various states of fullness for her gout.
    “Ida!”Helen swiped at Ida’s arm and Ida grimaced, but her eyes twinkled mischievously.
    “I don’t know,” Nans said. “How would the killer have known he would even show us the pills? Then he would have to have had another bottle with Leonard’s prescription information on it handy to make the switch at the right time. I think the pills being gone was just an added bonus for the killer.”
    “But if we do take the pill bottle out of the equation, this whole thing makes more sense. We’d only have to figure out how he got the drink with the poison and that would be a lot easier.” Jack’s eyes slid toward Karen.
    Karen pointed at Nans. “Don’t look at me. She made the drink. I just delivered it.”
    “You could have doctored it on the way to his room,” Ida suggested.
    Karen gestured toward the computer. “Can’t you look on that thing? You’ll see I didn’t put anything in the drink.”
    “Actually, we can,” Violet said. “I remember that Mona and I walked with Karen to the bottom of the stairs. So we know she didn’t put anything in it then. The surveillance system monitors the stairs and the hallway to Leonard’s room, so we should be able to see if she did anything on the way to his room.”
    Ruth found the file and they all watched Karen climb the steps and deliver the drink. She was in the clear.
    “Did you see anyone else around after you delivered the drink?”
    Karen shook her head. “No. Well, other than Gloria because I delivered her a drink in the conservatory. After that, I went back to the kitchen and cleaned up.”
    Ida let out a disappointed sigh. “So what now? We just sit around and wait for the killer to trip up?”
    Nans shook her head. “No, we don’t sit still. Next, we look for a motive.”
    They heard sounds in the hallway and looked over to see Danny Manning walking by, his head bowed, apparently deep in thought. When he noticed the crowd, he stopped and looked at them. “What are you guys doing in here?”
    Navy Shirt answered him. “It turns out there is a video surveillance that shows the hallway outside of Leonard’s room. We're looking to see who went into his room last night.”
    Danny’s left brow rose a fraction of an inch. “Oh,