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DIGITAL EDITION

Murder, mystery and suspense are the order of the day in this short novel as Stewart combs
through the actions of each suspect to discern exactly what happened to a murder victim.
The story collapses with a most shocking confession that no one would have expected as
the narrators builds the characters to almost life like. In an almost twist of murder she
wrote – character are brought to life in this suspenseful twister.

Begin Reading the Book

or

About the Author

A fan of mystery and suspenseful thrillers, Staffan is an expert at building characters in a
very short time, bringing them to life on the page and allowing readers to speculate “Who
dunnit”. Staffan had imagined being in an episode of Murder She Wrote or Criminal Minds
and developed a brilliant kaleidoscope of how to solve a Murder after the fact.

“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.”

Neil Armstrong.

“I’d like to dedicate this book to everyone that reads books on the edge of their seat! Especially

those of us that can never guess right – Who Dunnit!”

tepping into the mansion, one would suppose, was like stepping into any

other mansion. The house had been artfully crafted and meticulously
designed to give a feeling of elegance, poise, sophistication, expert

craftsmanship, and overall attractiveness. The mansion’s owners, on the other
hand, did not have the good fortune of being created from the most renowned
architects and designers of the decade. They did, however, believe themselves
to be in an elite class of elegance, perfectly portioned for poise, slathering in
sophistication, and applying atrocious amounts of money into their attire
helped their attractiveness.

Mrs. Georgette Roxby, known by her husband as Georgie, dressed to best

show off her ample assets. Being plump everywhere, especially where it
mattered, she had acquired the habit of hiding things in her bosom for later
use; thus only requiring her to carry around a small clutch to all affairs where
she could apply her other nasty habit of smacking her husband in the arm
with her purse.

Mr. Stewart Roxby, known by his friends as Stewart, dressed in a suit at

all times unless he was on the golf course. Not being quite as plump as his
wife, he often spent parties and social gatherings as far from his spouse as
possible, if only to avoid tomorrow’s arm bruises.

One night, a particular social gathering was held in their not so humble

abode and the primary purpose was for Mr. Stewart to talk business while
masking his affairs in the social lightness of wine-filled guests.

A small gathering, Mr. Roxby had invited a few of his favorites over for an

entertaining evening of discussion and games. He had invited three close
business associates, one of them bringing his wife. Upon arrival, the wife had

S

apparently invited a friend, and his single business associate had also invited
a lovely companion.

The evening began with the clinking of crystal wine glasses and the

tinkling of feminine laughter. Later, as the guests grew comfortable in their
surroundings and the hosts relaxed around the newcomers, the group split
into smaller parties. The gentlemen moved to the library and exchanged their
wine glasses for something shorter and the ladies remained behind to music,
gossip, and card games. As the night wore on, the groups rearranged to suit
the ulterior motives of the members of the party.

Stewart and Gerald, having been old friends, eventually cut the other two

associates from the conversation, waiting for them to leave and rejoin the
women. As usual, the duo developed their plans in private and would later
share the final edit with the others. Finally left alone to their devices, Stewart
sat and spoke with his hands held in a steeple while Gerald spoke with dollar
signs in his eyes.

Georgie, who had at one point exclaimed she was running out of hors

d’oeuvres, hid in the kitchen. The wife and her friend, Emelene and Priscilla
respectively, gossiped alone. Gerald’s companion, Anastasia, had been making
eye contact with Emelene’s husband, Lance, all night and the two managed to
sneak to the hallway at the top of the stairs.

This is where the real story begins.

Anastasia was enjoying the mouth against her neck while it lasted. He

broke away to button his shirt the rest of the way and she made sure her skirt
wasn’t crumpled before stepping away from the wall and heading back
downstairs. Lance would be another minute.

She had told him she needed to stop in the bathroom so if anyone came

out of their room, at least she and Lance would not be coming from the same
direction.

Just for good show, she was already digging out her lip gloss from her

small purse, rummaging around… she was sure she had brought it…

She gasped as her foot smashed into a solid object. Her hands splayed out

to stabilize her balance, finally bracing out to catch her fall as her foot tangled
in the object and she fell against the tiled wall.

Now her hands hurt, she had almost knocked her head into the wall, and

her purse contents were strewn about the bathroom. Groaning because the
impact had hit her harder than she knew, she turned around and came face to
face with Lance.

He was staring at her with his bottom jaw dropped and his eyes wide

open, rounded like a goldfish.

Anastasia sighed. Not like a goldfish, his eyes had more urgency to them.

She started to say, “Lance, I just tripped, I’m fine….”

He pointed at the ground.

She had been about to ask if he could help her pick up her purse contents

but a scream escaped her mouth before her mind had even fully registered
what she had tripped over.

On the floor, a man’s body lay on his stomach, his arms outstretched and

one leg crossed over the other in the shape of a four. Her lip gloss had landed
on the back of his neck and looked like it might slide down onto the floor. She
noticed his pale skin but he was facing the wall so she couldn’t see his face. At
the party he had been wearing a light blue button up shirt but now the back of
it had sopped up the blood that had seeped out of the wound on his back. It
had soaked out in a circle and had leaked down his sides and pooled around
him on the floor.

Anastasia let her gaze follow the blood pool all the way to her shoes. She

felt a sickness start just under her ribcage and crawl its way around, clawing
at her insides, making its way to her face. Disgusted, she stumbled her way to
the door of the bathroom and slipped her shoes off, standing barefoot in the
hallway.

Lance was gripping her upper arms to steady her and their eyes met.

Other members of the household had heard her scream and were making their
way out of their rooms to see what was going on.

Emelene and Priscilla were the first to open their door. Emelene took one

look at her husband with his arms bracing another woman and let out a
shriek of her own, screaming, “Lance how dare you touch another woman
while I am one room over!”

Lance winced at the sound of his wife’s shriek and instantly let go of

Anastasia, sending her staggering back a few steps. Out of habit, he started to
say, “Emelene, it’s not what you think…”

Luckily he didn’t have to finish his sentence because Stewart and Gerald

were opening their door. Immediately noticing the disturbance to his normally
immaculate bathroom, Stewart interrupted Lance by exclaiming, “Good God! Is
that a body on my floor?”

As if on cue, Georgie came bustling out of the kitchen, exclaiming, “Oh,

Stewart. I hear all this commotion out here, what is…”

She cut off her own question with a scream of terror, noticing the body

and pool of blood through the bathroom doorway. She scurried to her husband
for comfort, wrapping pudgy arms around him and beginning to sob into his
shoulder.

For a moment, the room was silent, except for Georgie’s sobs. It was as if

the last member of their party had brought with her the cold realization that
there was a dead body in the bathroom. Whatever their previous squabbles
had been, each and every person was silently swallowing their issues and
letting the matter at hand weigh in on their thoughts. It was as if the heavy
drapes from the library were closing, encasing them in a house of mystery with
no cares of the outside world. All other thought moved to the shadows as they
focused on the elephant in the room.

Not an elephant, a dead body.

Anastasia turned around first, to look back at it, at the man on the

bathroom floor. Something glinted at her and her first thought was that it was
change from her purse. Then she remembered she had not had any change in
her purse.

Barefoot, she tentatively walked back to the bathroom. Realizing that her

movement shook the other guests of their reverie, she tried to move cautiously,
carefully, and very deliberately. As she got closer, she realized that the thing
glinting back at her was a knife.

Gasping, she leaned down to pick it up to show everyone, “Was it murder?

Did someone kill Douglas?”

Gerald was still hovering in the doorway of the library when he yelled,

“Good God! Is that a knife?”

Georgie, who was still nestled into her husband, shouted, “It’s one of my

kitchen knives!”

Priscilla, in a much calmer voice, stated, “Georgie, you were the one in the

kitchen.”

Stewart cleared his throat which stopped anyone else from yelling or

making careless observations. The group looked at him, waiting.

He made sure he had everyone’s devoted attention before saying, “This is

my house. This was my party. For now, it is best if everyone steps into the
library so we can sort this out. Anastasia, please put the knife back. You have
now put your fingerprints on evidence to a murder case.”

She shrieked and dropped the knife back to the bathroom floor as if it had

tried to take a bite out of her.

Lance touched her softly on the shoulder and guided her into Stewart’s

study, earning Anastasia a few glares from Lance’s wife, Emelene.

By the time the ladies all found a seat in the library, Stewart was already

on his phone with the police. It only took a matter of minutes before they could
hear a distant siren down the street and it was not long thereafter that a

detective was called onto scene. After their names were taken, the authorities
made it known that their official “request” was for everyone to remain on site.

Stewart, Gerald, Lance, Anastasia, and, to everyone’s amazement,

Emelene, waited with a calming amount of brandy while Georgie and Priscilla
nervously wrung their hands. Georgie made a few comments that nervousness
made her hungry, but besides that and an occasional clearing of a throat, the
room was silent.

Eventually, the butler stood in the doorway of the library and announced

the arrival of the detective, “Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce detective John
Mabley.”

The detective smiled at everyone and was already guessing who was who

by the names he had been given. As he stepped into the room, the butler
turned on his heel to leave. The detective paused in the doorway to stop him,
“Weren’t you here during the murder? Just because you were not a guest at
the party, doesn’t mean you are not suspect. No harmful intentions if you are
innocent, but I would ask that you stay with us, Mr….”

The butler, his head held high, walked past the detective and stood in

front of a bookshelf near the door, finishing the detective’s sentence, “A very
innocent Mr. Eric Burnson.”

The detective leaned out the door to pass on the butler’s name. He turned

back to address his sparkling audience and noted the look of boredom and
discomfort on their faces. He was not usually nervous conducting interviews,
but the occasion was odd. He was, however, delighted to have all the suspects
(hopefully) in one room.

He now stood in a room of eight innocent civilians and one murderer. As

he smiled at the ladies in the room, he corrected his thought to also include a
possible murderess. He sighed and corrected himself again. It could be any
combination of guilty people. It could be a murdering duo or the whole lot of
rich windbags.

He nervously cleared his throat and began, “Ahem, ladies and gentlemen, I

would like to begin by taking a quick statement from each of you. We will step

out into the next room where I will take your version of what happened and
hopefully we can all be home in time for breakfast.”

Stewart honed his sharp gaze onto Mabley and complained, “You mean to

keep my guests here all night?”

Mabley nodded and informed Stewart of the situation, “The fact of the

matter is that there is a murderer or a murderess amongst you and that we
can either conduct the interviews here in the comfort of your home while
everyone is already gathered or we can move everyone down to the station
where there will be the press and prying eyes. My goal is to solve this as fast as
possible so that everyone who is innocent may return to their normal lives.”

Stewart pasted a savvy business smile on his face and replied, “Alright.

Since I am innocent, I am in full cooperation.”

“Wonderful, then let’s start with you.”

The following hour and a half was spent writing down the synopsis of the

night provided by each suspect. After the last story was done, he sat for a few
minutes by himself and rubbed his temples. It seemed like each one of them
was lying about something. Lance and Anastasia had both been vague about
how they had spent their time during the murder, which, whether he believed
they were guilty or not, put them on the top of his list.

Right before he was squaring his shoulders to return to the library, a call

on his phone alerted him to some additional dirt on his suspects. A few
minutes ago he had not been looking forward to the remainder of the night,
but now it seemed his task was impossible. The suspects were so interwoven
in a web of lies that he wasn’t sure he would be able to sort through it all.

He stepped back into the room and stood in silence, garnering everyone’s

attention and making them wait in suspense. He waited until the moment
before Georgie would nervously mutter about food and said, “Unfortunately,
you are all still suspect.”

In the silence of the room, the gravity of his words weighed down on

everyone’s face as expressions turned dour.

Stewart spoke up in defense of the room, “Surely we are not all suspect.

Priscilla barely knew him and my wife has nothing to gain by his death.”

Mabley smiled darkly at Stewart and asked, “I find it interesting you did

not include yourself in that list. Mr. Roxby, you will lead me to believe you are
hiding things.”

He stopped for a moment and looked around the room, leaning against the

back of Anastasia’s chair, he smiled down at her and said, “But then again,
you are all apparently hiding things.”

Anastasia broke under his gaze and looked away. A small flush in her

cheeks encouraged him to say, “I want to remind everyone that you are being
accused of murder. Whatever other dirty laundry is about does not measure
up against the dead man in the bathroom. Perhaps, the sooner everyone is
honest with me, the sooner I can start asking the real questions.”

Anastasia’s chair had been closest to the door and was facing into the

library. He walked in front of it so he could be the focus of the entire room.
Turning back around, he

Anastasia, “You, my dear, were his date for the night. I have a feeling there

is more information on him than you have shared. Let me reiterate your
evening back to you, because I’m a little confused. It seems you arrived with
Douglas, linked arms and sipped wine with him before dinner, and then after
dinner…”

Anastasia swallowed. She saw where he was heading with this, and if he

kept going, Douglas might not be the only murder tonight. She had to fight to
not glance over at Lance and give everything away.

The detective continued, “… after dinner I would believe you two made an

appointment for a secret rendezvous where it would be easy to get him alone in
any room you wanted, including the bathroom. You, by all means, would have
had the easiest time committing the crime.”

Mabley stepped closer to her chair and stood straight while he explained,

“Anastasia, it seems you are the daughter of Missy Princeton, the owner of

Princess Pie. The original store your mother ever opened was bought in a
rather dirty deal done by Douglas’s real estate company. The loss of the store
devastated your mother and her business, although still profitable, it is not
doing what it used to. I could imagine you blame Douglas, “the dirty bastard
for confiscating through conniving and deceit” the solid foundation of your
mother’s business. Those were your words in a news article from shortly after
everything was finalized.”

Anastasia shot down his theory by explaining, “You think I would kill him

in revenge. On the contrary, I wanted to use him to help my mother regain her
footing. He was growing fond of me, Detective Mabley, and I was hoping to use
him to help my mother open a new store. He seemed to have the resources to
find real estate wherever he pleased and I wanted to take advantage of that.
So, was my reason for being with Douglas on the straight and narrow? No, I
admit that. But you have not given me a good reason for why I would want to
murder him. I did, Detective Mabley, just lose someone that I had been
spending quite a bit of time with and, besides my better judgment, was
growing fond of.”

Mabley frowned at her as a spot of sarcasm ran through his mind. He

resisted rolling his eyes at her as he wondered at how awkward it must have
been to grow fond of your date. Out loud he softly corrected her, “Please, call
me Mabley.”

Someone walked into the library with something in a bag. The detective

listened while the person handed him the bag and whispered in his ear. As he
held up the bag for inspection, Priscilla gasped and exclaimed, “Those are
mine!”

The detective exchanged a look with the newcomer and addressed

Priscilla, “Are they? Well, these were found in the wastebasket in the bathroom
and they happen to be rather dirty from the bloodstains. It’s no wonder you
wanted to throw them out.”

Prim Priscilla sat with her lower jaw dropped open and her hands

clenched in her lap. Her mouth bobbed open and closed as she tried to say
something, “I… I… I…”

Mabley smiled at her and said, “I’ve been informed that you are not as

innocent from Douglas as you want us to think. You actually have met him
before, haven’t you? I’d imagine he would have been at an engagement dinner
you attended for the brief stint when he was your sister’s fiancé. Tell me, was
your sister devastated when he broke it off a month ago? It must have been
difficult to console a heartbroken twin sister and then sit across from the man
that caused it all at dinner tonight. Did he even acknowledge you?”

Stewart shook his head and leaned back in his desk chair. He had

remained quiet, but he was beginning to doubt allowing the detective to keep
them all here. The detective noticed Stewart’s irritated movement and turned
to question the owner of the house. Steeling his gaze, he said, “I suppose, Mr.
Roxby, you and Gerald would be my prime suspects. Out of everyone in the
room, you have the most to gain since it seems Douglas’s contract states that
if something were to happen, his share gets divided between you, Gerald, and
Lance. That makes you three my prime suspects, followed by the butler who
could have been hired to do your dirty work.”

Stewart, still not denying that he killed Douglas, pointed out, “If I was

going to hire someone, I could have hired anyone, and I would have preferred
they not do it at my house party. If someone on my staff were to commit
murder, not that they would, it would have been easier for Burnson to slip
poison in his food than actually accost and stab the man to death.”

Without missing a beat, Mabley agreed. He turned to Burnson and

genuinely smiled at him, “Well Burnson, it seems the general consensus is
that you are as innocent as you claimed to be.”

He turned back to the three men gathered around the large wooden desk

and narrowed his gaze, silently communicating their position on his list of
suspects.

Turning back to Priscilla, his eyes widened in surprise as she blurted out,

“My sister dumped Douglas. She let everyone believe he dumped her because
she didn’t want to seem selfish, but the truth is that she’s met someone else
and she is the one who called off the wedding.”

He heard Emelene and Anastasia gasp and a small, “Oh!” echoed through

the room.

He looked over to see Anastasia’s mouth still open from her utterance and

an expression of realization in her wide eyes. He prompted her to continue her
thought process out loud, “Yes, Anastasia?”

She had been staring into space, but now looked up at him, as she said,

“He seemed so depressed when met for our first date. He refused to talk about
the break-up or the engagement so I had been wondering why he acted so
distant and melancholy. But if she broke up with him, it all makes sense now.”

Priscilla pursed her lips as Anastasia met her icy gaze. As cold as Priscilla

was as a person, Anastasia doubted she had killed Douglas.

Mabley rested his chin on his fist and stood propping that arm with his

other crossed over his chest. After a moment of staring at Priscilla, he saw her
posture relax and he finally said, “I guess I can’t see you having enough
motive. You don’t have to stay since you are no longer a suspect.”

Priscilla, ever the calm and sophisticated lady, gave a weak smile as she

declined his offer of freedom, “You see, I arrived with Lance and Emelene. I
really should leave with them.”

Anastasia drew the detective’s attention back over when she asked, “Does

that mean I am still suspect? I thought we already cleared up why I wouldn’t
kill him.”

Mabley stepped over to hover over her chair as he explained, “You see, you

confirmed Priscilla’s explanation, absolving any doubt in her statement.
However, your explanation is currently still hearsay. I also cannot explain
exactly where you were when Douglas was murdered. You apparently told
Emelene and Priscilla that you were on your way to the kitchen to see Mrs.
Roxby. But Mrs. Roxby indicated in her statement that she remained alone in
the kitchen. So, my dear, where were you?”

Anastasia sank back into the chair and swallowed hard. He had her.

Everyone but Anastasia was looking at Georgie while her cheeks jiggled as

she shook her head and said, “No, I never saw Anastasia in my kitchen.”

Lance cleared his throat and drew some of the heat off Anastasia. The

detective hadn’t addressed him yet so Mabley was intrigued that Lance chose
to draw the attention over.

His low, proud voice stood up for her as he drew in a breath and on his

exhale explained, “She was with me.”

Emelene responded before Mabley could as she screeched, “What does

that mean?!”

He repeated, “She didn’t go to the kitchen. She was… with… me.”

Emelene suddenly stood from her seat on the couch and balled her hands

into fists. Her voice deepened and her shoulders shook with rage as she asked,
“What were you two doing?!”

Lance held his hands up, palms out as if to show he meant no harm. He

tried to say something but only got out a few words before Emelene let out a
guttural snarl and leapt across the library at Anastasia, screaming, “You little
harlot!”

Mabley had been standing between them and he caught Emelene’s small

frame when she tried to lunge around him. Holding the virago at bay, her
hands and nails trying to claw around him at Anastasia, he said, “This is quite
an interesting response. I wonder if this kind of unbridled anger could have
blossomed in time to kill Douglas. Did you, Emelene, once date a young
Douglas back in college?”

Emelene went limp in her husband’s arms as she was passed from one

man to the other. Her features turning stony when she said, “I don’t know
what you mean, Detective.”

The right side of his mouth upturned slightly as he corrected her, “Call me

Mabley,” then offered, “Would you like to take a moment to sit and remember?”

“No.”

Mabley stood with his arms crossed and asked with an impertinent

twinkle in his eye, “Would you like me to help you remember?”

Lance was helping her sit back down on the couch, but she still threw over

a cold, “No.”

Mabley rocked back on his heels, “Ah.”

He left Emelene alone for the moment and turned to Georgie. As he spoke

to her, Stewart leaned forward in his chair and scooted to the edge of his seat
while he rested his elbows on his big desk.

“Mrs. Roxby, the butler offered in his statement that the particular knife

used as the weapon was part of a set. Burnson then said he had used one of
the knives in the set while cooking dinner and he remembered that all of the
knives were in their proper place when he had last checked. That meant that
the knife was stolen sometime during or after dinner. You were the one in the
kitchen after dinner.”

She smiled fondly and stared off at the wall as she remembered her

evening, “Mmm, yes. I was getting a second helping of dessert.”

Mabley’s mouth quirked up again, “I believe you, and I respect your

honesty. It’s a refreshing addition to the night.”

She met his eyes and smiled at him cordially, “I don’t remember if anyone

came into the kitchen. I was rather preoccupied. First I had to find the
leftovers in the fridge, then prepare it on a dish, then warm it up and I add a
little …”

He held his hand up to stop her. She glared at it but clapped her mouth

shut and waited for him to say something. He stood with his hand to his
forehead, a gesture of impatience, and asked, “So you don’t recall if someone
stole into the kitchen?”

She shook her head, her lips still pursed.

Mabley sat on the floor in front of her chair with his legs crossed. Looking

up at her, he gently asked, “But Douglas did make some comments at you.

During your telling of the night, you mentioned he had said some things that
made you dislike him.”

Stewart suddenly stood up at his desk, his office chair rolling back a few

inches. His face was red with anger as he warned Mabley away, “I suggest you
take great caution with where this is going, Mabley. We are all still in my
house.”

Mabley grinned up at Stewart from his spot on the floor. A mischievous

curve to his lips, he asked, “Are you always this defensive? Now you have two
motives for killing Douglas. You might have wanted him gone to take his share
of the company, but perhaps you enjoyed stabbing him as a crime of passion
for insulting your wife.”

Stewart gathered his chair and sat back down. He folded his hands over

his desk and stated, “I did not kill Douglas.”

“Yet I have only added to your number of reasons for wanting him dead.

Could there be more?”

Stewart smiled coldly back at Mabley and offered, “I gain nothing from his

death. Six months ago I decided I would retire soon and since I already have
more than enough money, I removed myself as a benefactor. Only Lance and
Gerald have any financial gain from his death. Also, if Douglas had been rude
to my wife, I was unaware. It would have been bad business for me to catch
him in the act and my wife made no mention of the matter. She is perfectly
happy with who she is and could care less what Douglas thought of her.”

Georgie’s mouth widened in a smile and her small blue eyes glistened as

she said, “Why would I care what Douglas thought when I have my wonderful
Stewie to love me?”

Mabley watched as a deep, red blush crept into Stewart’s face. It seemed

the two love birds were innocent.

That left Gerald, Lance, Emelene, and Anastasia.

Stewart broke through his thoughts as he said, “As likely a suspect as

Gerald might be, he was with me in the library. He walked in with the four of
us after dinner. We all had a cigar. After Lance and Douglas left, he remained
in the library with me and never left. Gerald is accounted for all evening.”

That left Lance, Emelene, and Anastasia.

Lance would gain half of Douglas’s share of the company.

Emelene was clearly an emotional bomb and her ex could have been the

lighter.

Anastasia did not seem to have as much motive as the others.

He asked Stewart, “Did anyone get up during dinner? I need to find out

when the knife was stolen and how Priscilla’s gloves fit into the picture.”

Stewart thought about dinner out loud, “Well let’s see… I sat at the head

of the table with Emelene on one side of me and Georgie on the other. On one
side of the table after Georgie it was Gerald then Anastasia then Lance. On the
other side of the table after Emelene was Douglas then Priscilla. But I don’t
recall anyone getting up from the table until the meal was over.”

Emelene spoke up, “I do remember that Lance left for a few minutes,” she

shot a dirty look at Anastasia and added, “Alone.”

Mabley turned to look at Lance through slitted eyes as he asked, “Is that

so? Where did you go when you left?”

Lance licked his lips and looked around the room. His eyes shifted from

Emelene to Mabley.

Mabley repeated the question, “Where did you go?”

“The bathroom, if you must know.”

Mabley took a step closer to look down at Lance from his standing position

when he asked, “I don’t expect an honest answer, but did you go anywhere
else?”

Lance shot back, “If you don’t expect honesty from me, does it matter what

my answer is?”

Mabley was glaring back at Lance, standing his ground, when his phone

rang. Excusing himself, he left the room again.

Returning a few minutes later, the air in the room was so tense he

wondered how they had all managed to sit through a dinner together. The tight
frowns and downcast eyes as everyone avoided looking at each other added to
the complete silence and made Mabley wonder what everyone thought of
Douglas.

He cleared his throat and the room threw their gazes at him. He addressed

Anastasia, “My dear, how would you describe Douglas to me?”

“He was an asshole.”

“Elaborate, my dear.”

Anastasia elaborated, “I was with him because he could get me what I

wanted, he was wealthy, he was intelligent, and we had great sex. It was rare
that Douglas let his guard down and opened up to show someone who he
really was. Most of the time he was a businessman, which involved lying,
stress, and a massive ego. Douglas knew what he wanted, he knew how to get
the things he wanted, and he didn’t care who he hurt while he went after what
he wanted. The only people that liked Douglas were the ones who stood to gain
something from him. And even then, many people only put up with him until
they got what they wanted. It made Douglas distrustful of people and it only
confirmed his belief that ist was okay to be an asshole. He felt that in the end,
everyone deserved it.”

To point out the severity of the Douglas’s situation, Mabley asked, “When

Douglas met his end, is it what he deserved?”

Anastasia opened her mouth, but couldn’t answer. She didn’t know what

to say.

Mabley pushed his question a little farther, “Maybe you decided that what

you could get out of Douglas wasn’t worth letting a letch like him roam free.
Maybe, after spending time with him, you decided he had done enough evil for
one lifetime.”

Anastasia now had her answer, “Mabley, I honestly don’t think he had

done any worse than the other three men in this room. If I knock one down,
there will always be another to fill in. At least I knew Douglas. I was learning
where his faults ended and the true person began.”

“It sounds like you got rather close to Douglas in a very short time.”

“I had known Douglas for a while. We battled during the entire issue of my

mother’s business. After it was all over, he apologized for winning and said he
respected that I gave a good fight. Douglas was ruthless, but he wasn’t
completely heartless. He offered that if we found something else we wanted, he
would help us. When I found it, I gave him a call and the call happened to be
shortly after the engagement had been called off.”

She continued, “When we went on our first date, I knew Douglas was

using me to show that the broken engagement didn’t bother him. He didn’t
want anyone to think he might get emotional and make a mistake. But,
because I met Douglas at a time when he was actually very emotional, I think I
saw parts of him that most don’t get to see.”

Mabley smiled warmly at her as thanked her, “I suppose you may leave if

you would like.”

There was someone in the room who stood to gain a lot of money and

power with Douglas out of the way, and happened to have been in all the right
places at the wrong time.

He scowled at Lance and began, “You are under arrest for the murder…”

A female voice, strong, commanding, and tinged with dark emotion yelled,

“No!”

The room collectively held their breath and stared wide-eyed at Emelene.

Lance, who had been sitting holding his wife’s hand, turned to her and

tenderly asked, “Emelene?”

Her shoulders shook as she sobbed and tears welled up in her red eyes.

She looked only at Lance and confessed, “I was jealous of him. He seemed to
always get one better than you and you deserve so much more. I thought that
with him out of the way, everyone would be happier. He couldn’t make mean
comments at Georgie, he couldn’t smirk at me during dinner and try to feel up
my leg, he couldn’t get in the way of what you were doing with work, and I had
thought he had hurt poor Priscilla’s sister the same way he had hurt me. He
deserved exactly what I had coming for him. And no one will really be any
worse off.”

Anastasia clamped her teeth together but managed to mutter, “I will.”

Mabley touched Emelene’s shoulder and she stood on her feet. She

couldn’t tear her eyes away from Lance as she pleaded with him, “Lance, I love
you. I… I was trying…”

He looked away from her and down at the ground. As Mabley led her from

the room, she tried to turn around and look at her husband, “Lance? Lance,
you understand, don’t you? You understand why I did it? I love you.”

For as long as the occupants of the library had wanted everything to be

over, no one moved or spoke after Emelene was cleared from the room.

It was Georgie who broke the silence when she said, “I do remember now.

Someone had been in the kitchen because I heard the knife slide out of the
holder. By the time I had closed the fridge to look, the kitchen was empty. I
had thought I was hearing things.”

The room looked to Priscilla. It was Stewart who asked, “You had been

with her all night. When could she have done it?”

Priscilla glanced up at Lance, then down at her hands. Earlier that night

when Douglas and Lance were kicked from the library, Priscilla, Emelene, and
Anastasia had heard the library doors open. Emelene had stood up
immediately, saying how she wanted to check on Lance. A moment later,

Anastasia had left the room saying she was going to the kitchen. Since both
ladies had left, Priscilla couldn’t have known for sure which had been guilty.
She did notice that her gloves were missing from the coffee table but didn’t
know who had taken them.

Anastasia stared out the window at the black outside. It was likely chilly

now that it was dark. Douglas would have offered her his jacket on their way
home, but now she would be taking his jacket home without him.

Maybe if she hadn’t been carrying on with Lance, she could have been

there for Douglas and she could have stopped everything.

She didn’t want to wonder at the events of the evening anymore. After the

stressful night, she wanted a cigarette but didn’t want to taint the smell of his
cologne that lingered in the creases and collar of the jacket’s fabric.

She drove home alone, thinking on how she had just spent the evening

with a murderer.