by Vicki Delany
Right now, I felt a fool trying to pretend to be strong and ruthless. I wiped my hands on my jeans and attempted to control my breathing.
The front door opened, footsteps sounded in the vestibule, and Heather walked into the tearoom, her face set into hard, angry lines. She was dressed in tight white ankle-length jeans, fashionably shredded at the knees, a black-and-white striped T-shirt, and white sandals with two-inch heels. She held her phone in her hand. “I’m here. Let’s get this nonsense over with.”
I held out my hand. Then, remembering that people were listening and I was trying to record this, I said, “Give me the money.”
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars and no more. And that’s only to get you out of my hair. I might have fiddled with your grandmother’s car, but it was just a joke, because I could and I’m bored. My husband taught me a lot about cars, but I sold his collection when he died and I don’t get much of a chance to tinker with them anymore. I figured you’d crash before you so much as left your driveway. Like Tyler did.”
“Did you put Tyler up to stealing Simon’s bike?”
“Hardly. What do I care what the silly boy gets up to?” She pressed her thumb to her phone to open it. “Give me your email address and I’ll transfer ten thou. Then I want the cloth and I’ll be on my way. Tonight. If that cop thinks I’m going to stay here a moment longer, she can contact my lawyers.”
“What about the rest of your group?”
“What about them? Gran can come with me, but Mom and Dad and the rest are on their own. I’ve spent enough money on them. Ungrateful bunch.”
“Is that why you killed Ed? Because he wasn’t grateful.”
“I didn’t kill Ed. Or anyone else.” She snapped her fingers at me. “Hand it over.”
I needed her to say the words. To confess. With the sort of lawyers she could afford, if she was charged with tampering with Rose’s car, she’d get nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Unlikely, even that. No one had been hurt. No damage done.
“I want a hundred thousand. Ten isn’t enough.”
“You’re lucky I’m offering you ten. Take it, or I’ll go down to five. Keep arguing and I’m walking.”
“You killed Ed because he wanted half of what his brother had gotten for the company and the software.”
“Ed might have wanted half, but he wasn’t going to get it. Despite what he said, he could never prove he contributed anywhere near as much as Norman to the original idea or the development of the program. And that, Lily, is because he didn’t. Now, can we please get this over with? You’ve just wasted five thousand dollars of my time. All you’re getting is five.”
I rattled off an incorrect email address, and she punched buttons on her phone. I didn’t know if I’d be compromised if her money did show up in my account. “Trisha said Ed was about to come into money.”
“As you’re finding out, in your own annoying way, I prefer to pay people off rather than put up with their constant pleading. Dealing with greed gets so tedious. I offered Ed ten million dollars to put it all past him and leave me alone. He accepted. End of story.
“I’ve set up the electronic transfer for you. Give me the cloth and I’ll press the final key. Put it on the table, Lily, and then we’ll be done.”
I floundered around, trying to find something, anything, to keep her talking and eventually admit all. My phone was heavy in my pocket. I desperately wanted to take it out and check it was recording. Redmond needed to hear a confession of murder, not just of playing a prank on an old woman’s car. “Why did you invite Ed on this weekend, anyway? If you wanted him to leave you alone?”
“It wasn’t my idea, but it wasn’t a bad one. I knew it would make Dad and Lewis mad if Ed showed up. The thing with Julie-Ann and Trisha was a lovely extra bonus. Keeps things interesting.”
“Not your idea? Then whose?”
A figure stepped into the room. Heather turned around.
“It’s time to put an end to this tedious discussion, dear,” said a frighteningly calm voice.
“I’m handling it,” Heather said.
“Not very well. She’s a babbling fool, but she knows too much. It’s time for me to take matters into my own hands. Once again. Please get out of the way.”
Heather looked at me, and then she ducked her head so her hair fell over her face and took two steps to her left.
Sandra lifted the gun in her right hand.
Chapter 21
I yelped. Then, remembering the kitchen full of listeners, I said, “Sandra. It was you all along. Put down that gun!”
“Please leave us, dear,” Sandra said to Heather. Her arm, I couldn’t help but notice, was as steady as her voice. She stood tall and straight, her cane nowhere in sight. She’d played me—and my grandmother—for a fool. And it had worked. I’d seen Sandra jump to her feet when Tyler had crashed Simon’s bike, and then walking on the bluffs, comfortable and steady, when she hadn’t known she was being observed, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. The cane, the feeble old lady needing a strong hand on the stairs: all for show.
“Please, Gran . . .” Heather’s voice was nowhere as calm as her grandmother’s. “You don’t need to do this. We can leave now. Go back to New York. I’ll give her the money she wants and she won’t mention it again.” Heather turned to face me. Her eyes were wide as she pleaded with me to agree.
“We’re back to a hundred thousand,” I said, “and I won’t mention a word of this to anyone.”
“Too late,” Sandra said. “I thought you were a mindless bimbo, happy to play with your scones and pretty teacups, while Rose and the redhead pretended to be detectives. But I should have realized any granddaughter of Rose Campbell had to be as sharp as a tack. My mistake. I won’t be making another.”
In the kitchen, one of the old floorboards settled as it was stepped on. Heather threw a look toward the back. “What was that?”
Sandra didn’t react and her gun hand didn’t quiver. She might be spryer than she pretended to be, but she was still an eighty-year-old woman who refused to admit she was hard of hearing. She hadn’t heard the noise.
“Mice.” I raised my voice. If Redmond was on the move, I needed to give her some cover and some time. “We have lots of mice in here. Don’t tell the health inspectors.” The hinges on the old back door squeaked.
“The health department is the least of your worries.” Sandra’s eyes were once again fixed on my face. Something very dark moved in the depths, and I swallowed. “Heather,” she said, “go and check it out. Then leave by the back way. Rose isn’t on the veranda, and the redhead’s car’s here. They must have gone to Rose’s room, no doubt to keep poking into my family’s private affairs. Tell Rose I’m not feeling well and we’re leaving tonight. I’ll deal with this nuisance.”
“Gran, I don’t . . .” Heather’s voice trailed off.
“I said, I’ll deal with this. You need to trust me. Once again.”
Heather threw me a look that might have meant she was sorry. But not sorry enough. She ducked her head and slunk across the dining room, staying close to the walls, taking care to keep herself out of my reach.
She went into the kitchen and I heard a soft grunt. Sandra did not.
I judged the distance between me and Sandra and realized I had no chance of overpowering the woman. A table—perfectly arranged for afternoon tea—stood between us, and by the time I covered the distance, she’d have fired. I hoped my phone was still recording. If she killed me, Redmond would have the evidence she needed. “You murdered Ed French because he wanted money from Heather. Heather would have paid him off, she could afford it. But you decided to deal with him in a more direct way.”
“He wanted ten million. For now. Once he had that, he’d want another ten million, and then another. Get that idiot wife of his involved, and then who knows what they’d be insisting on? They’d make Heather’s life a nightmare.”
“You’re wrong about that, Sandra. If Ed thought he was entitled to t
en million dollars from his brother’s estate, and Heather agreed, that would have been the end of it.” When I’d been in Heather’s room the other night fetching a bottle of wine from her fridge, I’d seen legal papers on the desk. I hadn’t stopped to read them, but I had seen a note scribbled in the margins saying, Ensure it’s final? “Not everyone’s as dishonest and distrusting as you appear to be.”
“I’m not wasting time justifying myself to you. Your death will break Rose’s heart, and I’m sorry about that. She was a good friend to me. Can’t be helped. I’ll console her at your funeral.”
A shrieking figure wrapped in purple and yellow flew out of the vestibule. A pink stick flashed through the air and came down hard on Sandra’s outstretched right arm. Brittle old bones snapped and Sandra screamed. The gun clattered to the floor.
Chapter 22
I staggered backward and fell. Fortunately, a chair was behind me and I dropped into it.
Amy Redmond and Bernie ran into the room. Redmond’s gun was drawn, and Bernie clutched my marble rolling pin in both her hands, wielding it like a baseball bat.
Sandra cowered on the floor, moaning, holding her left arm over her head to protect herself from the wrath of the woman standing over her. Rose yelled rude English words, brandished her cane, and kicked the gun across the floor. It came to rest under a table.
Bernie dropped the rolling pin, grabbed Rose around the waist with both arms, and dragged her away. Redmond kept her gun and her attention on Sandra as she spoke to Rose. “I believe I told you to take a seat in the garden, Mrs. Campbell, and to leave the matter to me.”
“Did you, love?” Rose said. “I must have missed that. I don’t hear as well as I used to, you know.”
Redmond hid a grin and spoke into her radio, asking for backup and an ambulance.
“I wouldn’t have let her do it! I was going to get help,” Heather protested as she was frog-marched into the dining room by Simon. He had one hand on her shoulder and was holding one of her arms up behind her.
I heard sirens approaching and turning into the driveway.
“You had them on standby,” I said to Redmond.
“Of course. If I didn’t think there was something to your plan, I wouldn’t have come out. We’ve been talking to our colleagues in Grand Lake, Iowa, and learned some interesting things about Mrs. Sandra McHenry and what happened to anyone who crossed her path.”
“Not Heather?”
Redmond glanced at Heather, who’d stopped struggling and was crying quietly in Simon’s grip. The detective shook her head.
“Help me up, please,” Sandra moaned. Her voice had changed; no longer confident and authoritative, it had turned old, timeworn, timid, quavering with pain and fear. Helpless. “I’m an old lady. You can’t leave me lying here. She broke my arm. I’m going to sue.”
“Help is on its way,” Redmond said. “In the meantime, Sandra McHenry, I am arresting you . . .”
“Come on, Rose,” Bernie said when Redmond had finished the warning. “Let’s get out of the way. We’ll be in the garden if you need us, Detective. Is that okay?”
“Yes. Lily, you can join them. Mr. McCracken, I suspect Ms. French isn’t going to try to run. Are you, Heather?”
Heather said nothing.
“But,” Redmond said, “just in case, I’d like you to stand with her for a few moments longer until my colleagues can take over.”
Bernie, Rose, and I walked out of the tearoom as paramedics and cops rushed past us.
We took seats in the garden and watched the activity. It was getting dark now; the white flowers in the garden glowed in the dusk, and lights were coming on in the guest rooms of the B & B. The wind had picked up, and the teacups hanging from the big old oak tree tinkled merrily. Simon soon joined us.
“Sandra,” Bernie said. “I never would have believed it.”
I touched my grandmother’s hand. “Are you okay, Rose?”
“No,” she said. “I am not. My faith in humanity, never mind my own judgment of character, of which I’ve always been so proud, has been shattered.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “Judging by that snippet of information Redmond dropped, Sandra has fooled a lot of people.”
“Eric never liked her, but he never said why. Eric never said a bad word about anyone.” Rose shook her head. She looked every one of her years, and my heart turned over.
The parking area of the tearoom was crowded with emergency vehicles, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Lewis and Julie-Ann McHenry burst through the gate, accompanied by Amanda and Tyler. Brian and Darlene hurried down the driveway behind them. Other B & B guests gathered on the veranda. Matt Goodwill tore across his property heading in our direction.
“What’s happening?” Lewis gasped for air. “Have they caught the person who killed Ed?”
“It’s not Trisha, then?” Julie-Ann said, with what I thought an unseemly trace of disappointment.
Brian and Darlene arrived, and Matt came next.
“Is my mother here?” Brian said. “She’s not in her room. Is she okay? What’s happening? Where’s Heather?”
“Your mother,” Rose said, “has had a . . . minor accident. The medics are tending to her.”
He ran to the tearoom, but the uniformed officer posted there blocked his path and wouldn’t allow him in despite his protests. Darlene and Lewis joined him. They all shouted at the cop, who stood firm, her legs firmly planted and her hands resting on her belt, and said not a word.
“You guys okay?” Matt took a seat next to Bernie. He studied her face.
She gave him a weak smile. “We’re all good.”
“What’s happening?”
“We caught Ed’s killer. I’ll tell you later.”
Detective Redmond came out of the restaurant and spoke to Brian and Darlene. “Your mother has a broken arm and she’ll be taken to the hospital and tended to there.”
“A broken arm?” Brian said. “What happened? Did she fall? What does that have to do with you? Why are all these cops here? Why can’t I see her?”
Redmond held up a hand to stop the barrage of questions. “First, I have to inform you that Mrs. Sandra McHenry is under arrest for murder and two counts of attempted murder.”
Brian laughed. Then he realized no one else was laughing. “What?”
“My goodness,” Julie-Ann said.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Lewis said.
Amanda and Tyler simply looked stunned. Amanda recovered first and pulled out her phone.
“Heather!” Darlene put her hands to her chest. “Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s also under arrest,” Redmond said. “Accessory after the fact and attempted murder.”
Darlene’s legs gave way and she would have fallen, had not Lewis been standing next to her. He half carried his mother to a garden chair and lowered her gently.
“You can accompany Mrs. McHenry to the hospital,” Redmond told Brian. “But no one else.”
At that moment, Heather was marched out of the tearoom. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, her head was down, her hair fell over her face, and an officer gripped her arm. Darlene screamed. Heather didn’t look at her mother, or anyone else, as she was taken to a patrol car and stuffed into the back.
A car screeched to a halt in a spray of gravel and sand, and Detective Williams leapt out. The tail of his shirt was half out, and the front of the shirt buckled because the buttons had been pushed through the wrong holes. He had on one slip-on black shoe and one brown shoe with untied laces. “What’s going on here?” he yelled.
“Heather!” Darlene screamed as her daughter was driven away.
A stretcher was wheeled out of the tearoom. Sandra’s right arm was wrapped in a splint and her left wrist handcuffed to the gurney. “Brian!” she yelled. “This is a mistake. It’s Rose. Rose did it. She tried to frame me, and she put her idiot granddaughter up to trying to bribe Heather. Get me a lawyer. And not that inco
mpetent moron from Grand Lake, either.”
My grandmother put her head in her hands. I draped my arm over her frail shoulders and felt her tiny body heave.
“Bummer,” Tyler said.
“Oh, my gosh!” Amanda said into the phone, her words tripping all over themselves in the rush to get out. “They are, like, doing a takedown of my great-grandmother. She’s totally going to be on the warpath over this.”
“Lewis,” Brian said, “follow Heather to the police station and get a lawyer down there as fast as you can. I’ll go with your grandmother.”
“Where are the car keys?” Lewis said.
“In our room.”
We all watched while Sandra, still protesting, still accusing Rose, was loaded into the ambulance. Brian jumped in after her, and Redmond joined him. The ambulance drove away, not bothering with lights and sirens.
“I’m going with you,” Darlene said to Lewis after the ambulance had turned onto the highway and disappeared. “I need to lie down. This is all too much. Julie-Ann?”
“You go ahead,” Julie-Ann said. “Amanda and Tyler, go with Dad and Grandma.”
“But I want to watch,” Tyler said. “This is exciting. Do you think GeeGee really did kill Ed?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Darlene said.
“The cops think so,” he pointed out.
“Go,” Julie-Ann repeated. “And tell your sister to get off the phone.”
“Like that ever happens,” Tyler said.
I looked over Rose’s shoulder at Julie-Ann. Sandra’s granddaughter-in-law didn’t look shocked. “You have anything to say?”
She shrugged. “I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. I always figured Sandra was too fond of getting everything her own way.”
“Will you be quiet,” Lewis snapped. “That’s a terrible thing to say about my grandmother.”
Julie-Ann turned on him. Spittle flew as she yelled, “She wanted me to go back to you. ‘For the sake of the children, ’ she said. I told her that wasn’t going to happen, and if you were so concerned about the welfare of our children, you might have tried being a responsible husband and father. But Sandra couldn’t have that. If I didn’t see things her way, your precious grandmother implied that I wouldn’t be able to find work anymore.”
