Sushruta was right- his examination of the trap did go rather quickly. Having an experienced engineer really was useful in this situation, Devorah thought. Sushruta had Kefilwe identify the trap, and brought Tiberius to schlep something to push into the trap. When they returned, Sushruta declared it was unlikely that the trap had any method of poisoning.
Jacob heaved a huge sigh of relief at that, and then another at the return of his closest allies and Brad. As predicted, Jacob was flanked by Georgie and Gabriel, while Brad made his way over to Kefilwe.
Bell greeted Devorah with a smile, albeit one that was a bit smaller than usual. “What did I miss?” She asked.
Devorah pointed towards John, and Bell let out a happy shriek and waved with both hands. John nodded back. Devorah wondered what John thought about how it was going. That would be something to ask him about later.
“Still not very talkative?” Bell whispered to Devorah. She nodded back in a clear imitation of John, and Bell broke into a sweet laugh. “We’ll need to figure out a way to ambush him later! Maybe follow Gabe or Jacob into the bathroom and write Sushruta’s name in the steam? Ooo, or I can throw something at Sushruta, and pretend that Gabriel did it?”
“We can workshop it later,” Devorah said. She wanted to pay attention to the investigation, which would likely start back up again soon.
And so it did with a bang. Lupe said, “if the spikes weren’t poisoned, then it seems most likely that Mathilde ingested whatever killed her. Unless you found any other suspicious marks on her body, Nour?”
Nour shook their head. “Nothing else, Miss Lupe. Though…” They trailed off.
“What?” Tiberius demanded.
“The only time Mathilde could have eaten anything that was poisoned would have been when we broke our fast with Gabriel, Georgie, and Jacob.” Nour paused. “Or… I do not even want to suggest it, but at one point in the night I left Kefilwe and Mathilde to check on Faith and his concussion. And even before that, Kefilwe disappeared for an hour before coming back.”
“We didn’t do anything!” Jacob yelped. But it didn’t matter much. Suspicion wasn’t shifting towards the trio Devorah had become so familiar with. No, it was rearing its ugly head in Kefilwe’s direction.
Kefilwe, whose warm black skin had taken on a gray hue. Kefilwe, who was looking at Nour with eyes wide from the sting of betrayal. “Nour?” She whispered.
Nour turned away.
“Nour?” She said again, desperate. “Nour, what are you saying?”
Faith leaped on this opening like a starving dog. “I can corroborate Nour visiting me in the night. But I wonder, where did you go for that hour, Kefilwe? Can anyone here speak for her?”
“Nour, why are you doing this?” Kefilwe said, avoiding the question.
No one else spoke up. Kefilwe was definitely in trouble, but there were still a few things that wouldn’t add up. The most pressing to Devorah was this- even if people reappeared and disappeared, how did Mathilde’s corpse end up in the kitchen? The kitchen was locked off at night.
Did that mean someone murdered Mathilde before the kitchen closed? But surely someone would have noticed her absence- chiefly either Nour or Kefilwe. But if it was Nour and Kefilwe who were the primary suspects…
“Now would be the ideal time to state where we all were last night,” Budi said. “I would have rather waited until we all were here, but I doubt the murderer was one of those three.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“It’s always possible, though,” Jacob pointed out. “Right?” He looked at Georgie and Gabriel, who respectively shrugged and nervously picked at a thread coming off his worn shirt. They clearly weren’t going to be much help.
“We can just hear their alibis once they arrive,” Lupe said.
Faith smirked. “Yes, we were together last night and certainly did nothing wrong!” He said, likely mimicking the missing members of the cast.
“Exactly, that’s why we don’t have to wait for them.” Budi leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Either way, I spent my evening with Brad and then later met with Sushruta.”
“Yeah, bro.” Brad blew his nose noisily into his shirt. The bottom and middle part of it was now a disgusting mess of tears and snot. “Besides, me and Budi do not know about poisons. He just likes tea and teacups, which is most radical of him.”
“What about me?” Sushruta asked with a calm sort of amusement on his face.
“Sushruta! My man, you are too awesome to kill anyone. You like, spent your whole life making other people’s lives better! And all science isn’t the same, bro. Being an engineer doesn’t mean you know like, plants.”
“Not like Kefilwe or Nour would,” Jacob murmured. Devorah found herself quietly agreeing.
“Your support is very encouraging. Thank you, Brad.” Sushruta said. Brad gave him a watery smile in return. “And Jacob, did I hear you say something?”
“Ah, no. Just that Georgie, Gabe and I were together all night.”
“As for me,” Xoco began, “Tiberius was helping me with a project. We also saw Lupe pass by a few times on her patrols. Speaking of, Lupe, did you notice anything strange?”
“No.” Lupe crossed her arms. “But once this investigation is over, I might need to rethink my patrols. Clearly they aren’t working as intended.”
The group spent the next few minutes confirming and hashing out the alibis. At one point, Bell turned to Devorah and said, “I hate just watching! I wish I could do something, or at least talk to someone. I feel so awful about what happened to Mathilde.”
“You’re talking to me,” Dev pointed out.
Bell lightly smacked her on the shoulder. “You know that isn’t what I mean, silly!”
“You know,” Devorah wondered, “maybe there actually is a way. Do you have both of your charges available? You could potentially use them to communicate. Knock once for yes and twice for no?”
Bell sighed. “But what would I even say? I don’t know anything. I can’t be helpful.” She slumped in on herself, her tall, proud figure flinching. “I just wish I could be helpful, Dev.”
“I do too,” Devorah said.
Wanting to escape this conversation, she tuned back into the investigation at hand.
Once again, Lupe was taking charge. “So, as of now the only person we don’t have a set schedule for in the late evening is Kefilwe. When you pair that with the likely method of death, poison, it’s not looking good for her.”
All heads turned to Kefilwe. Though she had already experienced a burgeoning betrayal from Nour, it was clear that her situation was finally beginning to dawn on her. Panicked, Kefilwe looked around for a sympathetic face. Some, like Tiberius, faced her head on. Brad and Gabriel looked away.
“I don’t understand?” Kefilwe started, new tears forming in her eyes. “I’m a conservationist. While I know about plants, I don’t know about poisons.”
“You know which plants would be toxic to humans, wouldn’t you?” Jacob said, not meeting Kefilwe’s eyes.
“Well, some of them,” she admitted. “But where would I even find these plants? Everything we have, it’s dried and all edible! I found them, used them with Mathilde!”
“But you do not spend all your waking hours with the good nun, do you?” Faith interjected with that nasty smirk of his. “After all, you still will not admit to your location in the early evening.”
“That’s… I…” Kefilwe stuttered. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Faith raised both his eyebrows. “You certainly must know how suspicious that is?”
“I do! I know! But I promised I wouldn’t say.”
“Promised who?”
Kefilwe looked down and didn’t answer.
Eyes filled with pity, Xoco spoke up. “While we know it was poison that killed Mathilde, I do think we should listen to Kefilwe and try to figure out where the poison could have come from. We have found many strange things in this house, and even more oddities gifted to us from the gods.”
“Miss Xoco is right,” Gabriel said, then blushed as everyone looked at him. He tilted his hat down to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’m a fair hand with knowing what’s edible and what isn’t, and all the plants I’ve seen have been good for eating. So if something bad was delivered, surely there would be something it came in?”
“Yeah!” Georgie piped in. “And we figured out this house looks like something from my period. Jacob taught me that lots of things we used every day were actually poisonous. Maybe there was something in one of the rooms that we didn’t know was poison?”
“But you would have,” Nour said. “And now that I think about it, you did sit across from Mathilde at dinner.”
“Hey now,” Gabriel started, but Georgie reached over and patted him on the arm.
“Don’t you worry about me. I can handle this,” she said. And Georgie stood up to her full height and looked down on Nour. “Nour, accuse me of murder one more time and I’ll punch your lights out. I appreciate you helping me with my consumption, but don’t think that will stop me from kicking your feathery ass!”