Holidays Are Murder. Charlotte Douglas
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a shell-shocked expression and recognition flitted across her deep blue eyes. “I know you.”
“Maggie Skerritt.” I took her arm, tugged her from the patio chair and led her into the living room.
“Margaret? Priscilla’s daughter? What are you doing here?”
“I’m a detective with the Pelican Bay Police Department.”
With the wooden expression of a sleepwalker, she sank into a chrome-and-leather chair beside a fireplace with a mirrored surround and tugged the blanket closer. She picked up a remote control from a side table, pointed it at the fireplace and punched a button. Flames flared from a gas log. Shaking her head, as if clearing mental fog, she asked, “Why are the police here?”
“Standard procedure whenever there’s a death.”
Samantha was ten years younger than I was. She’d always been a beauty and either good genes or a great plastic surgeon had preserved that youthful attractiveness into her late thirties. But with her makeup ruined by pool water and tears, her face appeared ravaged. My job was to sort out how much of that effect had been produced by genuine grief.
I glanced at a massive portrait of two tow-headed little girls holding a Jack Russell terrier puppy that hung above the fireplace. Their resemblance to Samantha as a child was unmistakable.
“You have children?” I asked.
“Two daughters. Emily’s sixteen. Dana’s almost fifteen.” Her face crumpled and fresh tears streaked her cheeks. “How am I going to tell them their father’s gone?”
“Where are they?”
She glanced at a stylized clock of crystal and brass on the mantel. “Landing in Colorado. We had dinner at noon. Then they left with our neighbors, the Standifords, for a week of skiing in Aspen.”
“I know this is hard, Samantha, but I need you to tell me what happened right up to the point you pulled your husband from the pool.”
She inhaled a deep, shuddering breath and wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “After dinner, we loaded the girls’ luggage and ski equipment into the Standifords’ SUV. After they left for the airport, I put away leftovers and cleaned up the kitchen.”
“And your husband?”
“He was working in his study.” She nodded toward a room at the south end of the house. “He’s always working. We were lucky he took time to eat with us today.” Her voice was hard with annoyance before she broke into fresh sobs. “That was the last meal we’ll ever have as a family.”
“And after that?” I prodded. I felt sympathy for her, but the quicker I completed my questions, the sooner I could leave her to her grief.
She wiped her nose with a corner of the blanket, a rough utilitarian item provided by the paramedics. “Vince was still working. I felt a migraine coming on, so I took my medication and went upstairs to take a nap.”
“How long did you sleep?”
Her eyes, filled with agony, gazed up at me. “It was my fault, wasn’t it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“If I hadn’t been asleep, I might have found him in time to save him.”
“Had your husband been drinking?”
She gave a short laugh, more like a hiccup. “Not a chance. He’s a fitness addict. Never touches alcohol or red meat.”
“Did he have an illness or take medication that might have made him dizzy and caused him to fall?”
She shook her head. “Vince just had a physical. His doctor told him he has the body of a twenty-year-old.”
And now Vince Lovelace would be forever young. “Did your husband swim every day?”
“Like clockwork.” The edge returned to her voice. “He always swims laps in the pool every evening before dinner. If he’d shown the same diligence toward his family….”
Trouble in paradise, but discord didn’t necessarily generate foul play. “Did your husband have enemies?”
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