Binding Ties (Book 3 - Katie Prentice, Ghost Interpreter)

Chapter Eleven

Katie

Griff and I had a good time on the bus tour and the river cruise, and I was feeling much more relaxed and refreshed by the time the next day arrived. Five officers arrived for their readings, and I went into the bathroom with the first one, Sandra.

"This is one of the more unusual places for a meeting", she said with a smile.

I laughed. It was unusual, but necessary. She held out an evidence bag for me, and I asked her to open it up. She took out a necklace. "Apparently the victim wore it every day", she said.

I took the necklace in my hand, the room disintegrating around me and me seeing the woman, in my mind's eye, receiving a dinner through room service at a hotel. She smiled. She hadn't ordered anything yet, and thought that her husband must have done so for her. He was always doing nice things for her, and she thought about how much she loved him. It was because she loved him so much, because he treated her so well, that she couldn't understand why he was having an affair. Hadn't she done whatever he asked of her? Even having anal sex the night before, and that had hurt. He hadn't used lubricant.

She tipped the delivery person, took the bag of food over to the desk and set it down. She removed a polystyrene container and a set of plastic cutlery, opened the clamshell container to see a steak with seasoning on it, green beans done in what appeared to be butter, and a baked potato. She smiled. Steak and a baked potato were her favorite things to eat. The green beans she could leave. Even doused in butter, they were much too healthy.

She started to eat her food. She didn't care for the seasoning on the steak, but she ate all of it. She didn't want to offend her husband when he returned from the meeting he was attending. They had been arguing just half an hour before. She didn't want to bring on another argument, and suspecting that she didn't like the overtures that he was making would be upsetting to him. Shortly after she finished eating her dinner, her stomach started to cramp. Then she started to throw up. And shortly after that, she passed out.

I became aware of the bathroom again, and I turned to the toilet and threw up. "Her name was Margie Regatti. I don't know who did it, but her husband was having an affair on her and he had an argument with her the afternoon of the day she died. She had assumed that her husband had ordered dinner for her as an apology for the argument, but there was no indication that he was the one who ordered her dinner. It appeared as though her dinner was poisoned."

"She did die of poisoning, but there weren't any dishes in the room so we didn't know where she had eaten."

"There was a symbol on the bag that the food was delivered in." I drew the logo and wrote down the menu that was served. "I don't know what restaurant it came from."

"Thanks. We can look up the logo and hopefully we'll be able to find out who ordered the dinner."

"Good luck", I said. Sandra smiled and walked out of the room. As she was leaving the suite, Margie came to me. "Griff, get Sandra back. Margie's here."

Griff ran out of the room, and Sandra, as she stepped back inside the bathroom, said, "it's a good thing you caught me. The elevator had just shown up when you arrived."

Griff smiled.

"Margie is here with us right now", I said. "Is there anything that you would like to ask her?"

"Can she hear me?"

"She can hear and see you. You'll have to use me as your interpreter to hear the responses to the questions that you ask."

"What were you arguing about?" asked Sandra.

"I told him that I was tired of him cheating on me and that I wanted to start a family, that I wanted to take our relationship to the next level. He said that he'd never have children with me, that he didn't love me. And I took offence to that. It had seemed like he loved me. He took care of me, did little things for me all the time. I couldn't see evidence that he didn't love me, so it came as a surprise." I acted as an interpreter, relating everything Margie said to Sandra.