** Chapter 4 : Double Jeopardy **

Ω

When Amanda came back into the dining room, she saw that Jane had changed tables and was talking quietly with Percy, the well-spoken young man with the book. Jane nodded to let her know everything was all right. Amanda smiled and moved on to Bryson, who was playing a game of solitaire with a deck of cards from the bar. "Sheriff, are you busy?"

"Bored stiff. Just tried the phone; still no luck."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Amanda sat down next to him. "I've been thinking more about the poison itself. If I'm right and it is hemlock, that could make the investigation more difficult."

"Don't you worry about that. We've got plenty of suspects here with a possible motive," Bryson glanced up to make sure Alison wasn't coming back to the table yet. "It's just a matter of narrowing 'em down."

"I wasn't thinking of motive, sheriff. I was thinking of means and opportunity."

Bryson took a bite of buttered toast. "No big puzzle there, Mrs. Lane. There's plenty of hemlock in Pennsylvania if you know how to look for it."

"Yes, but I'm not sure how useful it would be. Hemlock is by far the most toxic when it blooms in spring, and this is late August. All you would find on a hemlock plant now are dry seeds."

"They're still poisonous, aren't they?"

"Oh, yes. Poisonous enough to make a person sick - but to kill them? How many roots or seeds would that take? Even if you found enough of them, you would have to grind them all up. That's an awful lot of powder to mix into eight ounces of vodka. I feel that the killer must have had the coniine in liquid form, where it would easily dissolve into alcohol."

"I suppose so. That's good thinking, ma'am," Bryson stroked his beard and smiled thinly. "But you can't just walk into a drugstore and buy a bottle of that stuff. I guess you could squeeze it out of the plants in the spring and save it for later. But if our murderer planned it that far in advance, why would he do it right now with all these people around and a big storm moving in? I'm damned if I can figure it, but I'll leave that to the local authorities. The most important thing, Mrs. Lane, is who could have slipped that poison into Mr. Dotson's drink. And between you and me, I'm leaning toward Miss Caldwell."

"Alison? How?"

"Easy. She bunked with him at the colony, waited for a chance to tamper with his flask, and today just happened to be her lucky day. Who else would've had a chance? He hardly let that thing out of his sight."

Amanda frowned thoughtfully. Yes, Alison was the most likely suspect ... and the conversation Amanda had overheard between her and Paris was interesting to say the least. But something just didn't add up. "I agree that she's going to be the prime suspect, but there's just one thing that troubles me."

"What's that?"

"All of the circumstantial evidence we've gathered points to Alison. But the only reason we know those circumstances is because Alison told us. If you had just committed a murder, would you tell a story that so clearly implicated yourself? Of course not. You would try to divert suspicion to someone else. And yet Alison never did that once. She seemed more concerned about Daniel than she was about our questions. Even when I asked her about his flask."

"I've run into some real good actors in my time, ma'am," Bryson was patient, but unmoved. "Why did you ask that question, anyway? About it being the same flask and everything?"

"Because I'm not at all convinced that it was. Daniel carried a generic steel hip flask that you could buy at any store. Who's to say the clean one wasn't replaced with a poisoned one before he left the colony, or even after he got on the bus?"

Bryson squinted doubtfully. "I think you're going out on a limb, Mrs. Lane. Nobody could have taken Mr. Dotson's flask out of his pocket and slipped a new one inside in front of all the other passengers with him just sittin' there."

Amanda leaned forward. She felt another idea dawning on her, a possibility that no one had yet considered. "That's true, sheriff. But maybe they didn't have to."

Before she could explain what she meant, another round of lightning and thunder rocked the building. A moment later, every light in Mom and Mel's went dark.

"Everybody stay calm now," Bryson's voice rose over the general outcry of fear and exasperation. "The storm might've knocked out the power. We'll just have to ride it out, that's all. Mel, do you happen to have any candles?"

Mel's husky voice responded from behind the counter. He was genial but had spoken little since they arrived, and had a tendency to repeat what little he did say. "No need, boss, no need at all. Got a generator out back. Get this place humming again. Right out back. Humming and going again before you know it, yes sir."

"I'll go with you in case you need any help," JJ said.

"Much obliged to you, much obliged."

The driver's heavy footsteps followed Mel's down the hallway and through the rear exit past the bathrooms.

"How do you like that?" the sheriff muttered to Amanda. "Nasty storm, stranded in Jersey, dead body, no electricity. Makes you wonder what else can go wrong on this trip."

Amanda was so committed to her current train of thought that she barely reacted to the outage. When it finally reached the station, she jumped up from the table with excitement and something approaching panic.

"Sheriff, I think there is a great deal more that can go wrong if we don't get out to the bus right now."

She heard him standing up beside her. "As usual I have no idea what you're talkin' about, but I trust you. Lead the way."

They bumped and jostled their way to the front door of the shadowy dining room. The rain was still coming down in sheets as they draped their jackets over their heads and ran for the bus. To their surprise, the door was already open, and as Amanda jogged up to Daniel's body and threw open the overhead compartment, she cried out in disappointment.

"We're too late," she moaned, placing her hands on top of her head. "Someone has already gone through his bag."

Bryson looked up to see that the dead man's possessions had been frantically searched. Various art magazines and articles of clothing lay halfway out of his carry-on bag. "Damn it. So much for leaving the scene of the crime undisturbed. I should have told JJ to lock the door."

"It's much worse than that, sheriff. Unless I'm mistaken, we may have lost a very important piece of evidence!"

"How do you mean?"

"Do you remember when Alison told us she asked Daniel to keep his vodka in his carry-on bag? Well, suppose he did? Suppose he had been carrying a flask for so long that he checked his pocket without thinking about it? My brother-in-law does that all the time, and so did I when I drank. It was like a reflex."

Bryson's eyes were taking on that peculiar light again. "Go on … "

"And suppose that by the time he checked his pocket, the killer had already slipped a new flask into it. One that was laced with coniine. He was tired, he was distracted; he simply assumed that the flask had been in his pocket all the time. Suppose that's what the killer was counting on!"

Bryson rubbed his beard again. "That's a lot of supposin', ma'am, but I admit it's an interesting theory."

"More than that; if I'm right, it means our killer must have been someone who was familiar enough with Daniel to know his habits, and that narrows down our list of suspects."

"Okay, Mrs. Lane, let's say you're on to something. He was awake every minute of that ride 'til he started boozing. How did they slip him the second flask?"

The lights in the diner came back on, and Amanda wasted no time. "If you'll follow me, sheriff, that's just what I intend to find out."

The sheriff scrambled to keep up with her as she rushed off the bus. "You sure have a lot of energy for a hippie!"

Ω

Back in the diner, Paris and Alison were sharing another hushed and unpleasant conversation in the hallway. JJ and Mel were coming back from the generator, and Guy and Jet were holding hands while debating whether Félix Guattari was right about postmodernism being nothing more than the last gasp of modernism.

Percy and Jane were still chatting. She was the first person he'd actually enjoyed talking to in quite a while. They both loved art, had parents who traveled a lot, and agreed that Ashfield was almost creatively barren and excessively preoccupied with trends.

"'Scuse me folks, 'scuse me if you please," said Mel. "Got the lights all fixed now, fixed up good as you please. Generator's running."

"Well, that's certainly good news," Russell Johns said, drumming his fingers on the table. "But I'd be much happier if we could all get out of here. I certainly won't be hard to find if the police want to ask me anything."

Guy crossed his arms and nodded. "Neither will I! This whole thing is a waste of time. We already know who our suspect is."

Alison and Paris both looked at him.

"I didn't mean either of you! Sheesh."

Paris wasn't about to relax. "I don't trust you, Guy. You're almost as bad as Daniel. You'd sell any one of us down the river."

"No one insults Daniel Dotson in front of me!" Guy stood up furiously, knocking his chair back.

"Being dead doesn't make him a saint, you know!" Paris retorted.

Guy was storming over to confront her when an unexpectedly strong arm reached out and stopped him cold.

"Enough! Settle down, all of you."

It was Johns. No one had even seen him get up, but he easily shouldered Guy back into his seat and turned to the other artists with an expression as stormy as the weather.

"As long as I'm stuck here, let me enjoy my coffee and my newspaper in peace. The last thing I need is to babysit a bunch of noisy twenty-somethings in a greasy spoon diner."

Mel huffed in outrage behind the counter, but no one else made any trouble.

"Well done, Mr. Johns," said Sheriff Bryson. He and Amanda had been standing virtually unnoticed in the doorway. "I couldn't have said it any better."

"You're too kind, sheriff," Johns quickly sat down again.

"Don't be so modest," Amanda said lightly. "You have such a strong personality, and a talent for defusing risky situations. It's hard to believe you would need any more protection than that! Assuming you really are a computer programmer, that is."

"I ... I don't know what you mean by that," he said crossly, not looking up from the paper.

"I think you do," Amanda positioned herself carefully behind him, where an empty coffee mug was within her reach - not an ideal weapon, but solid enough to hit him over the head with if things suddenly turned violent. "And since one passenger has already died, I think it would be best if you explained to the sheriff why you're wearing a gun."

Percy looked unnerved for the first time. Guy moved bravely in front of Jet. It was so quiet that Amanda could hear a drop of water hit the floor.

The sheriff stood, his hand already at his belt. "Keep your hands where I can see them, Mr. Johns."

"You're very good, lady," Johns raised his arms and gave Amanda a withering look over his shoulder. "Sheriff, I assure you I can explain."

"I would hope so," Bryson approached him casually. "But everyone's a mite skittish right now, so if you wouldn't mind, I'll just take that gun off your hands first."

Johns looked displeased, but he didn't move. "You'll find my identification and my permit in my right pocket, and the gun in a holster on my right shoulder."

"Thank you. Nice and easy, now," the sheriff removed both the ID and the piece, and everyone in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. Bryson peered closely at his card and nodded, satisfied. "Very interesting. Would you care to tell us what this is all about?"

"What's to tell?" Jet interrupted. "He's obviously your prime suspect. Why else would he be packing heat on a bus?"

"For the same reason the sheriff is, young lady," Johns snapped. "It's part of my job. And since Mrs. Lane here has blown my cover, I guess I might as well explain. I'm an investigator for an auto insurance company. I was ordered to come out here and conduct surveillance on the late Mr. Dotson. Several years ago, he reported that his car had been stolen and we received a tipoff that he had merely sold it to a shop to be cut up for parts. We looked into it, but we didn't find any concrete evidence of fraud. When he called my company yesterday to report another stolen vehicle, they sent me here to follow him and find out whatever I could."

Amanda relaxed. "I see. I suppose Daniel's death complicates things."

Drip. That same noise again. She wondered where it was coming from.

"I intend to report it to my superiors as soon as the phones are working again. In the meantime, sheriff, I'd feel much better if you returned my gun now. If there's a killer on the loose, then I want to protect myself."

"I can appreciate that, sir, but I think it would be best if I held on to it for now. Credentials are so easily forged these days, and considering you've already fibbed once about your occupation and what you were doing here ... "

"This is ridiculous!" Johns retorted. "I keep my investigations on a need-to-know basis. Besides, you said it yourself; you have no jurisdiction here."

"That's right!" Guy said impatiently from a few tables over. "And I for one am getting tired of sitting here like a rat in a cage. Let's just cut to the chase. There's only one person here who's crazy enough to kill Daniel Dotson, and I'm looking at her!"

He pointed to Jane. She stared back at him with revulsion. "Just because I'm the one artist at Ashfield who wasn't kissing his feet or jumping in his bed, that means I killed him? I think you're the one who's lost your marbles, Guy. Assuming you ever had them in the first place."

"That's a baseless accusation," Percy agreed, taking the opportunity to stand up for her. "I don't know who killed Mr. Dotson and I want justice for the man as much as anybody. But sitting around pointing fingers at each other is not the way to get it."

Guy threw up his hands in frustration. "Come on, Percy! That's exactly what I'm trying to say. We don't have to point fingers because we already have our prime suspect!" He looked at Jane again. "She's the one who threatened to kill him before we even got on the bus!"

"That settles it for me," Jet added. "Let's just get some rope and tie her up so we can all relax."

Jane turned pale. Amanda walked over and stood in front of her. "No one in this diner is going to touch my daughter. And no one who spent sixty days with her is going to tell me, after seventeen years, that she is a killer."

Guy paused and fidgeted. "I … I apologize if we've offended you, Mrs. Lane. But I heard that she threatened him and I believe it!"

Bryson put his hands on his hips. "And just where did you hear that, Mr. Lipinski?"

Drip.

Guy was stuttering. "Well, um … that is -"

"I told him, sheriff," Paris intervened. "Because I saw it myself. It wasn't exactly a death threat, but she was arguing with Daniel and Alison before they left. Angrily. And she made an off-color remark about what Mr. Dotson could do with the spears he used to make Paper Plate Genocide. Admit it, Jane. Did you or didn't you?"

Jane stood up calmly. "Yeah, Paris. I did. I don't deny it. He was hitting on me and threatening my career. I don't even remember why. It was just some stupid argument. And if I went around poisoning people just because they bothered me, there'd hardly be anyone left in Lawndale, Maryland. And you didn't have to see him die, okay? I was standing right there."

She paused, looking around at the faces of her fellow suspects.

"And that shouldn't have happened. He had a lifetime ahead of him. He deserved to finish it. I'm not going to take that away from somebody. That … that's just sick. No, I didn't like him. I didn't respect him. I wanted to get away from him. That's all I wanted. To put this stupid colony behind me and get some decent pizza and move on with my life!"

Jane turned away from them and looked at Amanda. Now she really needed her mother, and for once her mother was there. Amanda embraced her tightly, butterfly metaphors be damned.

"I want to go home," Jane whispered to her.

"We will, darling. We will."

Guy and Jet looked at each other and then down at their table. Paris looked rather embarrassed herself. Alison seemed lost in thought. Johns was sitting down again and looking away, uncomfortable with the show of sentimentality.

The sheriff quickly moved to settle things down. "As I was about to say, folks, I think we're all anxious to get home at this point and we'll get there that much more easily if you just bear with me and wait 'til we can contact additional help."

Water dripped yet again.

As Amanda sat down and Jane leaned wearily against her, she turned to follow the noise. When she found the source, she caught Bryson's eye and motioned him to come over.

"Sheriff," she whispered in his ear. "Our prime suspect must be whoever went out to the bus and searched through Daniel's bag. Right?"

"That's what I figure."

"In that case, if Paris has been sitting here like all the rest of us for the past hour, then why is her sweatshirt dripping wet?"

Ω

"Whoa," Trent coughed as he shouldered open the stubborn door and walked into Myron's Auto. "I never knew The Tank had that many parts."

"Yeah. Was it supposed to catch on fire?" Jesse followed him, also dripping wet, undaunted by the fact that the lights were off and the shop was nearly pitch black.

"I didn't see that part. I think that was when I fell asleep," Trent felt along the wall for the lights. "You'd better hurry to the bathroom and look for your necklace. I don't think Myron wanted us in here after hours."

"Thanks. I forgot to put it back on after I gave myself a bath with the soap dispenser."

Trent stubbed his toe on something and muttered an "ouch." Except for The Tank being crunched into a thousand pieces, it had been a pretty good night. The demolition derby was cool: a few dozen cars smashing into each other in a dilapidated arena with thunder booming all over and rainwater leaking through the roof in a dozen places. They couldn't wait to tell Nick and Max when they got home. Trent had already come up with several song ideas; Jesse suggested "Thunderdome", but Trent was pretty sure that had already been used.

The guitarist, as if immune to the dark, was already walking into the bathroom by the time Trent found a switch. Dingy yellow lights partially illuminated the shop and revealed a chaotic mess of car parts all over the cement floor: hubcaps, headlights, bumpers, mirrors, batteries, engines and more. All of them looked expensive and in good condition. There were a few nice-looking cars in various stages of disassembly, but the centerpiece was a whole white convertible hot rod with leather seats and vanity plates proudly reading, "DOTSON."

"Hmmm," Trent studied the scene thoughtfully. "I think this is the wrong end of the building."

"You can say that again," Myron growled from the doorway behind him. The Phillies baseball cap shadowed his eyes as he kicked the door shut and took a pistol out of his pocket. "You just stand over there by the wall."

"Okay," Trent shrugged.

It seemed he had stumbled into a chop shop. That was kind of lame. He'd hoped to at least learn to play in open-D tuning before he died. The timing kind of sucked too, because his mom expected him home and would probably be wondering where he was after a few days. Oh, well. Rock as much as you can in the time you have, Nick had told him once. It was good advice.

"Bad luck, young man," Myron said grimly. "Just plain bad luck."

"You probably should have locked the door," Trent replied.

Myron cocked the gun. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

He aimed. Trent yawned.

Something large and heavy struck Myron's head with a clang. He crumpled unconscious to the floor. Jesse shuffled out from the shadows behind him and, detecting no more threats, tossed the enormous fender aside.

"Thanks, man," Trent smiled.

"No problem," Jesse replied. "I found my necklace."