We met Marge in the hallway, or at least Odelia met her, and we tagged along. For the benefit of privacy we used the bedroom Marge and Tex were staying in for the duration of the retreat.
“So you’re saying you heard a scream?” asked Odelia.
Marge nodded. She looked stricken, which wasn’t surprising since she’d just stumbled across the dead body of a friend. “Around two o’clock. I thought it must have been a dream, but now I’m not so sure.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Tex decidedly.
“You were sleeping,” said Marge, as if accusing her husband of a grave offense. “While I was lying awake all night.”
Tex opened his mouth to speak, but then seemed to think better of it and closed it again.
“You couldn’t sleep because of the scream?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, no. You could say that was the cherry on the cake, so to speak.” She hesitated, then said, “Isobel was writing a book. A book she says she was filling with secrets of all the people she knew. So naturally we’ve all been on tenterhooks wondering what she’s going to write about us.”
“You don’t have any secrets, though, right?”
“Oh, no, of course not. And neither does Tex. But still.” She chewed her bottom lip nervously. “Isobel was a recovering alcoholic, and coming clean was part of her process.” She shrugged. “I guess we were all unsure what she was going to write. Whether true or false, it might be damaging to the reputation of the people present.”
“Very damaging,” Tex muttered darkly. As a doctor, he was a public figure, and had his reputation to think about, same as anyone in his position. So I could imagine he wasn’t happy about this tell-all book Isobel Droba had been in the process of penning.
“Do you think this murder could be connected to the book?” asked Odelia the obvious question.
“I thought it was a breakin?” asked Tex, looking up sharply.
“We’re not sure exactly what happened,” Odelia explained. “Though it certainly looks as if her room was broken into last night.”
“There’s something else you must know,” said Marge tentatively.
“Yes?” Odelia encouraged her.
“Yesterday, when we got back from our doubles game, I heard a fight in Isobel’s room. Isobel and her daughter Alison. Something about Alison wanting to marry this man she’s been seeing. Jason Rocamora. Jason is an ex-con, apparently, and Isobel wanted her daughter to break it off with him. Instead, Alison said she wanted to marry him, and Isobel wasn’t happy about that. She threatened to cut Alison off financially.”
Odelia was scribbling all this down on her tablet, nodding all the while.“She was rich, was she, Isobel?”
“I guess so,” said Marge. She emitted a curt laugh. “It’s not a topic that’s come up in conversation, but I’ve always assumed she and Michele are well-off.”
“That would be Michele Droba, her… sister-in-law?”
“Yes. Michele married Dean Droba and Isobel married Dean’s brother Gavin.”
Odelia looked up.“I thought Michele was staying here with a man named Chris…” She consulted her notes. “Christopher Bonarowski. A publisher?”
Marge nodded, crossing her arms in front of her chest.“Dean died. It’s a terrible story. He and his brother got into some kind of argument one night and Gavin gave his brother a shove. Dean fell and hit his head against something sharp—I think the edge of a desk or a chair if I remember correctly—and he died. Consequently Gavin fled the country and hasn’t been seen since.”
“So Michele is a widow and Isobel’s husband went missing?”
“It’s not a story a lot of people are familiar with. But since Tex and I have been friends with Michele for so long…”
“Michele doesn’t talk about her husband,” said Tex. “And neither did Isobel.”
“I can understand why,” said Odelia. “When was this?”
“Oh, must be almost ten years ago now.”
“Seven,” Marge corrected her husband.
“Seven,” Tex echoed, cutting his wife a curious look.
“Okay, and you were both in this room when Isobel was killed?” asked Odelia. When her parents looked at her, clearly aghast, she shrugged. “I have to ask.”
“Of course,” said Marge. “As I said I was having trouble sleeping, so I was awake the first part of the night. But I never left the room, and neither did your dad.”
“I also had trouble sleeping, actually,” Tex muttered. “Must be the bed.”
“Yeah, that must be it,” said Marge, though she didn’t look convinced.
I was wondering what else was going on here. For some reason the couple was acting a little evasive. As if they were hiding something. Hard to drag them over the coals and extract a full confession, though, being that they were Odelia’s mom and dad and all.
“Okay, so is there anything else you can think of? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Like what?” asked Tex, who was tiring of the barrage of questions.
“Like… how did Isobel strike you? Same as usual? Different?”
“She seemed tense,” said Marge. “At first I figured it had something to do with this book she was writing. But then yesterday I thought it must be connected with Alison and her affair with her ex-criminal.”
“That must have weighed on her mind,” Odelia agreed. “Anything else? Dad?”