Read Online Murder in Cottage #6 (Liz Lucas Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) by Dianne Harman - Free Book Online Page A

was
probably a personal one for her. She also knew it wasn’t her daughter,
Brittany, or her son, Jonah, since they always called her on her cell phone.
While she was of an older generation that still relied on land lines, her
children definitely were not. Their cell phones were as much a part of them as
their hands and feet.
    She pressed the blinking
button to listen to the message while she looked over and smiled at Winston who
was fast asleep in his new bed, the stuffed toy she had dubbed Mr. Hedgehog,
lying right next to his nose.
    “Mrs. Lucas, this is Wes
Anderson, the county coroner. I’m afraid I have some bad news. Barbara Nelson
did not die of natural causes. It looks like murder, and due to the lack of any
signs of a physical struggle or needle punctures indicating that something was
injected into her body, my feeling is that she died from something she ate or
drank. In other words, she was poisoned. I’m able to do some very basic testing
for foreign substances in my lab, and I found no traces of the chemicals found
in sleeping pills or the bourbon that was on her nightstand. However, she
definitely had some type of a foreign substance in her body, but with my
limited testing equipment, I don’t have the ability to determine exactly what
the substance was that killed her.
    “Like I said, I feel
certain she was poisoned. I’ve sent a sample of her blood to the police lab in
San Francisco. They usually get back to me pretty fast, so I’m hoping I’ll know
something by tomorrow or the next day. The problem then becomes, while we may
know what killed her, we won’t know who killed her or how the poisonous
substance was introduced into her body. I don’t want to tell you how to run
your business, Mrs. Lucas, but you don’t have to be a psychic to understand
that having this happen at the Red Cedar Spa is not going to be good for your
business. Word will be out shortly because I have to tell the police chief, and
he suffers from a severe case of diarrhea of the mouth. Rather imagine it will
be all over town in a few hours. As bumbling as he is, if he can solve it, and
that’s a big if, it will probably be later rather than sooner. My advice is to
see what you can find out on your own. If you have any questions, feel free to
call me.”
    Liz listened to the
message for a second time, not fully comprehending what the coroner was saying.
Stunned by the disclosure, she sat for a moment, trying to digest the enormity
of what he had said.
    So Barbara was murdered.
She didn’t die of natural causes, and she didn’t commit suicide. The coroner
thinks she was poisoned but doesn’t know by what or by whom. Word will soon be
all over town, and the spa will get a huge black eye unless I can find out who
did it. I’ve never done anything like this, and I don’t know where to begin.
About the only thing I have is my little niggle and Winston, but I have no idea
if that will be enough. Uh-oh, I better find out if the coroner told Dave. If
not, I better be the one to tell him. I’d hate for him to go into Gertie’s and
find out from someone that the police chief had already been there and shot off
his big mouth to anyone who would listen. Like Roger said, the spouse is
usually the first suspect in a murder case.
    She called Wes back. “Wes,
this is Liz Lucas. I got your message. I have one question, well, actually two.
Have you told Seth yet, and have you told Dave?” She listened and then said,
“Would you do me a favor and wait about an hour before you tell Seth? I’d like
to tell Dave myself, and I’d also like to ask him where he was from the time
Barbara left the lodge after dinner at about 8:30 until the time when Bertha
found her a little after 8:00 the next morning. It seems to me there’s almost a
twelve hour time frame when anyone who is a possible suspect needs to account
for their whereabouts. It sounds very strange to me to be using terms like
suspects, but I guess I better get used to it if I’m