A Very Tranquil Murder

Chapter 4

I helped Lisette wash up the breakfast dishes while Sgt. Toussaint took statements fom the remaining three members of the wedding party in my office. It was only a co-incidence that I could hear their voices clearly through the thin wall that separated the the office from the kitchen.

Who am I kidding? It was completely intentional. I'll admit it: I'm a nosy person. In my former career as an assistant pharmacist, I'd often become distracted from the tedious work of counting pills by imagining what lay behind the various patients' prescriptions. Why, for example, was a corporate lawyer taking pills for depression? What could a man who earned a six-figure salary possibly be depressed about? I'd wonder, after yet another argument with my husband over who was responsible for that month's overdraft on our joint bank account. Or I'd ask myself why a gorgeous 25-year-old was taking anxiety medication. Young, pretty, and single: if she thought she was anxious now, wait till she hit 40. Recently, though, I'd found myself thinking that if pills could cure our collective anxieties, we should all be taking them — a common public health measure like wearing masks and washing our hands. If only a pill could cure the underlying causes. Nowadays, if you didn't have anxiety, you weren't watching the news.

In any case, as I washed and dried the teacups, I listened to Sgt. Toussaint asking Eric about the last time he'd seen Jerry alive.

"It was at the restaurant," Eric said. "He and Carmela arrived late. I guess they hit some bad weather on the highway."

"What time did you leave the restaurant?"

"It was around 8:45 or 9 o'clock, I guess. I went back to my room, checked the NFL highlights, then went to sleep. I was tired. I'd had a long drive that day."

"And the others?"

"They went to hang out in the hot tubs, as far as I know."

"What time did that end?"

"I don't know. I was asleep."

"Your wife didn't wake you up when she came back?"

"No. I didn't wake up all night."

"All right. Thank you Mr. Lockhart. If you could send your wife in, please?"

As I was putting the teacups away in the cupboard, Darlene answered Sgt. Toussaint's questions in much the same vein as her husband. Her voice had a quality of suppressed hysteria: a nervous tremor on the brink of a sob.

"What did you do after you came back from the restaurant?" Sgt. Toussaint asked, pursuing his previous line of questioning.

"I got changed into my bathing suit and went out to the hot tub with Angélique and Jerry and Carmela."

"And your husband?"

"He stayed in. He was tired."

"All right. And what were you doing in the hot tub?"

"Talking. Drinking."

"How much did Jerry have to drink?"

"He was drinking a lot. He had quite a few beers. And a mickey of something, I'm not sure what."

"Anything else?"

"He was smoking. Marijuana." She added in a defensive tone: "It's legal now."

"Yes, I'm aware. Did you see him taking any pills?"

"I ... I don't know. I don't remember."

"You don't remember?"

"I... I was drinking more than usual myself."

"All right. How long did this carousing continue?"

"Carmela went to back to her room, I'm not sure what time. Maybe after an hour or so. Angélique and I stayed a little longer. Till ten-thirty or quarter to eleven. Then we went to bed."