Free Unreasonable Doubt by Vicki Delany Page B

that the Glacier Chalet?” she asked the dispatcher.
    â€œYes. Ellie Carmine called it in. A man has attacked one of her guests.”

Chapter Twelve
    Smith pulled her cruiser to a halt half on the sidewalk outside the gorgeous Victorian mansion. She ran down the path and bounded up the steps. The door opened before she reached it. A woman, not Mrs. Carmine, someone Smith didn’t know.
    â€œThank heavens you’re here, Officer. He’s gone berserk.”
    Smith told dispatch she needed backup and stepped cautiously into the front hall. “Follow me,” the woman said. She led the way into the dining room. The room was large enough for four tables of varying sizes, set with white tablecloths and pink-and-white china, and a long buffet with coffee and tea things, boxes of dry cereal, a crystal bowl full of sliced fruit, and containers of yogurt. The walls were papered in a dusty rose pattern; a chandelier dripping crystal tears hung in the center of the room; the windows were set into deep recesses overlooking the garden. Portraits in gilded frames, of stern-faced Victorian ladies and rigid mustachioed gentlemen, graced the walls.
    Smith glanced around the room quickly, checking everyone out. They were all on their feet, the remains of breakfast abandoned on the tables. Aside from the two men who’d apparently been fighting, the other occupants of the room were women of a similar age, dressed in identical outfits of black spandex shorts and red tee-shirts with the name of their team, Kelowna Pepper, across the front of them.
    The two combatants had been separated, placed in their own corners like boxers. The younger man seemed to have gotten the worst of it. He sat in a spindle-legged chair, more ornamental than designed to hold a person, with a box of tissues on his lap. A woman stood over him, holding his head back, pressing tissues to his nose. A pile of discarded tissues, red with blood, lay on the floor around him.
    He pulled his head away from the woman’s gentle hold as Smith came into the room. She recognized Walt Desmond immediately from the picture Winters had shown them.
    The other man was older, much older. He was pressed up against a corner, Ellie Carmine planted firmly in front of him, while a dragon boat woman, short but powerfully built with close-cropped gray hair, held his arm.
    Gino D’Angelo. Sophia’s father.
    Not good.
    â€œWhat’s going on here?” Smith feared she didn’t need to ask. Ellie Carmine had phoned the police station yesterday evening to say Walt Desmond was staying at her B&B. It was entirely possible she’d told half of Trafalgar as well. And so Sophia D’Angelo’s father had come looking for him. Outside, sirens announced the arrival of her backup.
    â€œI’ve no idea,” the woman helping Walt said. She was close to six feet tall with a cheerful blond ponytail that swung as she talked. “That man barged in here, yelling his fool head off, and without a word he slugged Walt. I’m a nurse. I don’t think his nose is broken.”
    â€œWe were having breakfast,” another woman said. “The doorbell rang, Ellie went to open it. We heard yelling. I went to see if Ellie needed help, but that man pushed right past me. “He kept yelling that he was here to see Walt.”
    â€œWalt got up, went to the door,” the nurse said, “to see what was going on. And—wham—he got a punch in the face. That guy’s a lunatic.”
    Brad Noseworthy came into the room. Smith gave him a nod. Everything okay here.
    â€œMrs. Carmine, you can let Mr. D’Angelo go now,” Smith said. “He won’t be causing any more trouble. Will you, sir?”
    Ellie stepped back; the short-haired woman released D’Angelo’s arm.
    The old man lifted his head, and looked at Smith for the first time. His eyes were sunken pools in a dark face. He spat on the beautiful cream and rose carpet.