I got the lo mein out of the refrigerator, filled a bowl for him, and set it in the microwave. “Do you have any idea how Lewis Wallace ended up in that meeting room? He hadn’t signed up for the workshop.”
He raked a hand back through his dark wavy hair, a sign that he was feeling the stress. “I have no idea. There are no security cameras in that part of the hotel and so far none of the staff has admitted letting him in.”
“You know that Wallace seemed to have some problem sleeping?”
Marcus nodded. “I do. And there is security footage of him wandering around other areas of the hotel. Someone from the cleaning staff asked if they could get anything for him but apparently he said he was just walking around until he was tired.”
“I saw the EpiPen on the far side of the room.” It had been lying on the floor against the leg of the whiteboard. Nowhere near Wallace’s body.
Marcus gave me a wry smile. “I’m not surprised. You have very good observation skills.”
“I’m guessing since Lewis Wallace is dead that he didn’t get to use it.”
“That’s a good guess,” he said.
“I also saw the broken glass on the floor and the overturned chair.”
“I assumed you had.”
“Those both suggest there was some kind of a struggle.”
Marcus nodded. “They do.”
The microwave beeped and I set the steaming bowl of noodles, sauce and vegetables in front of him, then got both of us fresh cups of coffee and for myself one of the remaining maple cookies from Eric that I had brought home from the library. I settled in the chair to his left, pulling one foot up underneath me. “So you don’t think Wallace dropped the pen while trying to use it and then it rolled away and he knocked those things over trying to get to it?” I asked, taking a sip of my coffee.
Marcus tried a forkful of lo mein then gave a nod of approval. “That’s good,” he said, gesturing at the bowl with his fork. “And just between the two of us, no. The hotel building is old but it is solid and I couldn’t get anything to roll that far away from where the body was.”
“Someone else was in the room with him?”
He didn’t say yes but he didn’t say no, either.
“You’re sure the muffin was the source of the peanut butter?” I broke the cookie more or less in half and took a bite. It was good, too.
Marcus reached for his own coffee. “Yes. There was a box of muffins from Sweet Thing on the table. They were peanut butter and banana. The medical examiner found part of one of those muffins in Wallace’s stomach and his throat.”
“The reaction must have happened very quickly if Wallace didn’t even have a chance to use his EpiPen.”
“Wallace had asthma. According to the medical examiner that could explain why the response was so rapid. Probably had something to do with his sleep issues.” Marcus picked up his fork again. “And you’ve had those muffins. You really can’t taste anything besides the banana. He may not have realized what he’d eaten.”
“They’re the ones Maggie likes so much?” I asked.
He nodded.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Owen lick his whiskers. Georgia’s peanut butter and banana muffins weren’t just Maggie’s favorite. They were also Owen’s after half of one fell on the floor one day this past winter. The fact that it landed right in front of Owen was just a happy coincidence according to Maggie, who had actually managed to say that to me with a straight face.
“Why would a man with a severe allergy buy those muffins?” I said. “Georgia is very open about her ingredients. She doesn’t make those muffins very often because they have peanut butter in them and when she does, she uses the kitchen at Fern’s because the Sweet Thing kitchen is peanut-free.”
Georgia shared a kitchen and workspace with the Earl of Sandwich, which ran two lunch trucks that serviced pretty much all the construction sites in the area. (And yes, the owner’s name really was Earl.) They had the main floor of a two-story, blue-shingled house on Washington Street, a couple of streets above Main and two blocks east of the library. Like most of the other buildings on the street, the businesses were on the main level and there were apartments on the second floor.
Marcus shrugged. “It seems someone else bought them. Georgia is in Minneapolis for a course until the end of the week. When she gets back I’ll talk to her.”
I broke the last bit of my cookie in half. “Georgia isn’t actually a suspect, is she?”
“No one is a suspect at the moment,” he said. “We still have a lot of people to talk to.”
I noticed what he’d avoided saying—that Lewis Wallace’s death had been an accident. “You think Wallace was murdered,” I said, watching his face closely for a reaction. I could see he was weighing his words. I waited.
“There’s not much sense in denying it at this point,” he said. “Yes, we do. The medical examiner is taking a bit longer than I would have liked to come to the same conclusion, but I think he’ll rule Wallace’s death a homicide tomorrow. Wallace did take a bite of that muffin but it looks like after that someone shoved it into his face. And there’s no way his EpiPen got across the room of its own volition.”
His answer confirmed what had been niggling at the back of my mind all along. “That’s why you wanted to talk to Derek and why you were happy to hear he had an alibi,” I said.
“Derek had more than one heated encounter with Lewis Wallace. I was glad to cross him off my list.”
“Georgia had an encounter with the man.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Mayville Heights was a fresh start for her and it almost didn’t work out. I don’t think there’s any way she could lose Emmy now, but Georgia is still skittish. Given that her in-laws tried to kidnap her child, I don’t blame her.”
Marcus reached across the table and caught my hand. “Don’t worry. I don’t think Georgia would be stupid enough to kill someone with muffins she made and then leave the box behind.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“Look, I doubt she even sold those muffins to Lewis Wallace,” he said, “but even if she did, she had no way of knowing he was allergic to peanuts.”
“What about his business partners? They were going to lease some property to a group that wanted to operate a riverboat casino. Maybe they had some kind of disagreement.”
He shook his head. “They were both in New York City with lots of witnesses.”
Owen was still sitting between us hoping to mooch something. He gave Marcus his best plaintive kitty look. I saw Marcus glance down a couple of times at the little gray tabby.
“He’s just trying to play you,” I said. “Ethan has been feeding him who knows what all day.”
Marcus looked down at Owen, shrugged and said, “Sorry.”
The cat shot a cranky look at me, ears going in different directions. I knew that somehow he’d understood every word of the conversation.
A twist of noodle that had been wrapped around Marcus’s fork slipped off just then, landing on the floor at the side of his chair. It had barely touched the floor when Owen pounced on it, quickly sniffed to make sure it was “safe” to eat and then all but slurped it up with a flick of his pink tongue. The look on his furry gray face was a mix of triumph and defiance.
I decided to let him have this one.
Marcus smiled. “I swear I didn’t do that on purpose.”
I smiled back at him, happy to have the subject changed. “I know you didn’t. A certain little opportunistic furball has very fast reflexes.” Owen straightened up, preening just a little. It seemed he took my words as a compliment.
Marcus checked the time. “I’m sorry to eat and run but I really do have to go.” He got to his feet. “Thank you for supper.”
I got to my feet as well and he pulled me close for a kiss that led to a second kiss.
We broke apart very reluctantly. “I really do have to meet Eddie,” Marcus said.