“For the open bar,” Taylor quipped.
I winced.
“Too soon, Taylor,” I told him. “Too soon.”
“Touché,” was his response.
Seven
Hollis didn’t think me or Taylor was funny.
He just stared at me. It was a skill he had. He could just stare until I felt compelled to tell him the truth.
“I came back because Teddy has a nose for murderers,” I told Hollis, which was true, if not exactly the answer he was looking for. “Also because I have four suspects sleeping under my roof tonight and I would like to know what, exactly, I’m locking the doors against.”
“That’s not comforting, Harper.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to be honest.”
Hollis pinched the bridge of his nose the way he did when he was trying to decide whether to be a detective or a neighbor first. Tonight, the detective was winning, but only by a length.
“Puncture wound,” I said, circling back before he could redirect me again. “Inside her mouth. That’s what you said.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Could she have swallowed something? Broken glass, maybe, if the cup cracked, or a shard off the straw itself if it snapped…” I stopped, because Hollis’s expression was sour. “What?”
“The straw’s missing,” he said. “You know that already. I know you know that, because Marcus already texted his manager that a woman and a skunk interrogated him about a piece of flatware.”
“I prefer ‘asked politely.’ And is a straw flatware? I’m not sure about that. Isn’t it more like barware?”
“He used the word interrogated.” Hollis exhaled through his nose. “And I don’t give a damn what a straw is etiquette-wise.”
“Evelyn Carrington would have,” I pointed out.
Hollis looked up at the night sky. I suspected he was counting to five. Or praying to Jesus to grant him patience.
“A clean break wouldn’t explain a puncture that precise. Glass doesn’t do that. Neither does a snapped straw, not unless somebody engineered it to do that.” He caught himself saying more than he meant to and closed his mouth around the rest of it.
“So not an accident,” I said quietly. “Not poison, either. Or anything else. Like an overdose.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” I held up the balled napkin, which I’d been clutching this whole time. “Teddy found this in the laundry cart. Crushed mint, way more than a single julep needs, hidden at the bottom instead of thrown in the trash where it belonged. It smells bitter under the mint. Allison thinks it's poison. I think somebody wanted us thinking it was poison.”
Hollis looked at the napkin like he wanted to rip it out of my hand and toss it into the burbling fountain on the manicured lawn.
“Give it here,” he said, and produced an evidence bag from his jacket pocket with the weary efficiency of a man who always had one on him. I’d seen him pull gloves out once before as well, and frankly, I found that a little disturbing. I wasn’t the only one who needed a more life-affirming social life these days.
I dropped the napkin in. He sealed it, wrote something on the little label without looking at what he was writing, because his eyes were on me instead. “You went digging through a catering cart at an active death scene.”
“It wasn’t active. It was very sedate. Lots of standing around. No one said anything other than that this is a party.”
“Harper.”
“I know.” I did know. The adrenaline that had carried me through the last two hours was starting to ebb, and I was crashing out. I was getting a little tired of being present when people croaked. “I know, Hollis. I wasn’t trying to make your night harder.”
Something in his face softened again, the way it had before, quick and involuntary, like he couldn’t quite help it even when he wanted to. “You never are trying,” he said. “I do believe that.”
