by Lane Stone
I nodded so she would know I’d heard her, then went to a safer subject. “I think if you are going to eavesdrop, you should practice so the eavesdrop-ee doesn’t know you’re listening.”
“Who are you talking about? Us?”
“No, Howard Fourie,” I said.
“Hello,” John’s baritone voice said. I wanted to ask what he meant by that but didn’t want to sound paranoid or guilty, though I was both. “Can we speak outside?”
“Hello to you, too,” I said. “They’re about to start.” I waved my arm in an arc in case he hadn’t noticed the room full of people seated in rows of restaurant and folding chairs which faced the counter where Martin and Julie were standing.
He leaned close to the side of my face, almost touching my cheek, and I breathed him in. He whispered, “Martin Ziegler is coming in to confess.”
Chapter 34
“There’s only one reason Martin Ziegler would confess to murdering Billy B.,” I said to Chief Turner, once we were on the sidewalk and away from any conduit to Lewes’s rumor mill. I would need that network later, but not now. I had left Lady Anthea inside the deli at the service.
“Because he’s guilty? I mean that’s just a guess, but after almost two decades in law enforcement, I’m willing to go out on that particular limb.”
Waves of soft, kind laughter reached us from inside Mozart’s. I couldn’t make out who was talking or what had been said, but the memorial service had begun.
I looked down and shook my head. “You can’t possibly think he tried to break into my house last night!”
He took a deep breath and ran his hand over his head. “No. I don’t see him putting in that much effort.”
“Exactly,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I think my intruder last night was the one who killed Billy B.”
“Why did you think he wants to confess then?” John asked.
Louder voices came from Mozart’s now.
“To Billy B.!”
“To Billy B.!”
I stood there looking at the crack in the sidewalk, not daring to look up because I was so afraid of what I was thinking. The only reason I could think of for Martin to confess to a crime —a serious crime—that he didn’t commit was if he thought Rick did it, but why would he suspect his son? “No idea,” I said. Our eyes met and we agreed he would accept my lie. The way we did that helped my conscience.
We heard chairs scrape and the general feeling of people moving around and talking. Opera started again. This song was different. I guessed German again, but it was only a guess.
“If he wants you there when he turns himself in, will you come?”
“Oh, you bet,” I said, a little more schoolmarm-ish than I’d intended.
Chief Turner looked at the closed doors. They were made of glass, so the memorial service guests could watch us, if they wanted to. “Let’s walk to the station. Officer Statler will bring Ziegler down.”
“Look at all this traffic. You would think it was summer,” I said.
“All right, I can take a hint. I won’t say any more,” he said.
“I wasn’t just trying to change the subject. Traffic really is heavy with visitors coming to town for the high-tech display Mr. Edutainer and his son have planned for the commemoration events. A lot of the restaurants are going to be serving a dessert wine that’s supposed to taste like the wine from the shipwreck,” I said. “It’s called Grand Constance. The winery made it in 2005, the year after the artifact was found, for their 320th anniversary.”
“I know. I saw the application for the permit to sell it on the beach.”
“You don’t have to worry about public drunkenness. It’s supposed to be so sweet and thick no one wants much of it.” I knew I wouldn’t be there to sample it, but still, it sounded like fun. “We even have a row of yachts in the bay, lined up,” I rambled on. “Some sailed across the bay from Cape May, New Jersey, and others sailed in from the Atlantic Ocean!”
“Who’s Mr. Edutaaaainer now?” He was laughing.
“Aw, do you think I’m entertaining?”
“You have no idea,” he said.
I figured we were far enough away from the memorial service to laugh and not be inappropriate. We crossed the street at the end of the block.
“I want to set a trap for whoever really killed Billy B.,” I said.
“I’m already not liking this.” He stopped walking and turned to me. “If you don’t believe the person that wants to confess is the real culprit, though everything points to him, then who do you suspect?”
“If I knew then I wouldn’t need to use this elaborate con. And I would tell you.” I explained to him all I knew about both Billy B. and the Fourie family’s connection to Cologne, Germany, and about the HooRU app and how Dana had learned about the Nazi grandfather. Then I told him about Howard Fourie wanting his son to become head of South Africa’s UNESCO commission, and my suspicion about the timing of Billy B.’s murder. “It had to be before David got to town.” He listened without interrupting me and I liked that.
We were walking again. “I’ll bring him in for questioning,” he said, making it sound simple, but still unpleasant. “Want to know why I don’t think Howard Fourie murdered someone I doubt he even knew existed? And by the way, most murders are committed by someone known to the victim. They hardly traveled in the same circles. If Billy B. had this information on the Fourie family, he could have told the world—not just David—and at any time during the weeks Fourie has been here in Lewes.”
“Maybe he felt it would be worse to look bad in his son’s eyes than in the eyes of the world?”
Then he exhaled. “He’s going to lawyer up so fast.”
“There’s more,” I said.
“Of course there is.”
“What about Julie Berger?” I asked.
“I’ll admit, she always gets a convenient case of shyness or grief or whatever, before she can be questioned,” he said.
I told him about her asking David to take her with him when he left. “And there’s Sandy Westlake,” I added.
“That boat captain? When Billy B. was killed he was taking us to the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse on Monday, remember?” he said.
“He could be involved in some way, right?” I was grasping at straws. “Was he the one who reported the incident at Irish Eyes yesterday?”
“He tried to make it anonymous, but, yes, it was from his cell phone and he was at Mozart’s when he placed the call,” John said.
“He tried to steal Wags and I made him put the dog down,” I said.
“You just told me more than I got out of anybody that was at Irish Eyes yesterday. It was like a convention of blind, deaf people. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything.”
“So now that you know what kind of person he is, don’t you think you should question him about the murder?”
“I get that for you attempted dognapping is as serious as murder, but it’s not for me.”
“We know that Captain Westlake and Martin wanted to use Wags for breeding. He and Billy B. could have gotten in a fight over the dog. So those are my three suspects. Really Lady Anthea’s and mine, and you have Martin Ziegler,” I said.
“Why don’t I just arrest the whole town?” he asked.
“The way I see it, you don’t have to prove anyone guilty. You just have to keep them from leaving town.”
“What did you have in mind?” he asked.
“If there was a rumor going around town that evidence that would solve the case had been found, he or she might try to get it,” I continued.
“Rumor? I can’t be a part of disseminating misinformation,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “We’ll take care of that.”
“That sounds like something from one of those books you like to read, but tell me more. Where is this
imaginary evidence?”
“Not in a public place, but not too private either,” I said. “Some place the killer would have to make a real effort to get to.” I stopped to gauge his reaction, but he was his usual stoic self. Then I thought about how he’d taken me in his arms last night. He wasn’t stoic then. “I want people to think it’s at the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse.”
He opened the door to the city administration building and we walked through to the Lewes Police Department offices. It seemed ages ago that I had been sitting on that sofa with Lady Anthea and Rick. He led me to the same interview room.
“I’ve seen way too much of this room lately.”
“Did you use that facial recognition app on me?” he asked.
“What? No! I wouldn’t do that.”
He didn’t respond, instead he asked, “Will you be okay waiting in here while I telephone the Coast Guard about tonight?”
I went in and sat down, which he interpreted as me being okay. He was still talking. “They can use their personnel and facilities to assist federal, state, and local agencies and I believe their assets are especially suited for whatever is going to happen tonight. So do you mind waiting in here?”
I was indoors; the room was stuffy; my friends were eating Mozart’s food. Hell, yeah, I minded. I just hadn’t had the heart to say so. Chief Turner was telling the Coast Guard about our amateurish, Elvis-inspired, half-assed scheme. I grabbed my cell phone and called one of the few people I wanted to talk to at that moment. I hadn’t told Lady Anthea where I was going and I’d left her at the memorial service without a ride back to Buckingham’s for the agility class. The call went directly to voice mail.
“It’s Sue,” I whispered, afraid Chief Turner would be back any minute. “I’m at the police station.” I told her about Martin’s plan to confess and what I thought his real reason was. I was about to launch into why Rick couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t kill Billy B. when the door opened and I quickly hung up, hoping she’d check her messages soon.
John came in, followed by Officer Statler and Martin, who was startled to see me.
“I don’t need her here!” he said. Was he firing me? Could I be evicted if he didn’t want me here?
“Why not?” John asked.
“She hassles my friends,” he said, leaning his back against the wall.
“Like Sandy Westlake?” I asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“He tried to steal Wags again,” I pointed out.
“What’s the big deal?”
“Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
Martin looked at Chief Turner, who was standing by the door. “If someone wanted to kidnap you to go have sex, would it be the worst thing in the world? I ask you.”
“Actually, yeah,” John said. “I wouldn’t like it. It would be illegal.”
“Why are you trying to confess to a murder you didn’t commit?” If I was about to be thrown out, I wanted to do as much damage to his plan as I could, as quickly as I could. “Why do you think Rick killed Billy B.?”
Chief Turner’s head, and that of Officer Statler, jerked from me to Martin, then back again. I’d jumped ahead a few squares. They’d have to catch up.
“He certainly didn’t!” I yelled.
Martin wilted into a chair and put his head in his hand. When he looked up he asked, “Can I talk to her by myself?”
Chief Turner looked at me. “You good with that?”
I nodded and got up and moved to the chair next to Martin. I put my hand on his back.
“Let’s go,” Chief Turner said to Officer Statler. He reached for the door.
Martin watched the door to be sure it was fully closed. “I didn’t find my car at your house!”
“But the traffic camera showed you driving it!” I countered.
“Yeah, on Savannah Road.” He had me there. Chief Turner had said the cameras along the street photographed him.
“Where did you find it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, so I stayed completely still. Which I happen to be good at. I imagined myself sitting on my surfboard.
Finally he said, “In front of Raw-k & Roll.”
“How did you know to go there?” I asked.
“I knew Billy B. wanted dog food, so when the car wasn’t at Buckingham’s, I went to another place where somebody could steal dog food from. I figured he wouldn’t try to break in to a big pet store. He wouldn’t know how.”
“So you didn’t follow the fumes and smoke to my house?” I asked.
“Nah, I don’t know where you live,” he said. “Well, now I do since it was in the paper. Plus when I was in here on Tuesday you said something about my car being at your house.”
I had been keeping my eyes glued on Martin to pick up if he wandered into that place where he thought he could make up anything he wanted and pass it off as his own truth. Now I glanced up at the ceiling. He was right, I had revealed the part about my house in that interview. I wondered who else had seen that article in the paper. Last night’s visitor?
“Shelby saw your, uh, very unique car, at my house. So how did it get to Raw-k & Roll?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Looked like he had no intention of telling me, so I answered my own question. “The other night we were wondering how the killer got away after he killed Billy B., and we just assumed it was on foot. Now we know the killer drove your car. And now I get why you couldn’t answer Chief Turner when he asked if Billy B. was alive when you retrieved your car from my driveway. You were never at my house.” I took a deep breath and revised my opinion of the man sitting next to me. “On Monday when Chief Turner was trying to identify the body and Rick couldn’t reach you, he thought it might be you. That you might be dead. He was devastated,” I said. I let that lean on him a few seconds then picked up again. “So, you see, Rick didn’t kill Billy B. He didn’t even know he was dead. What you’ve done today is a completely unselfish act. That’s very rare. I think you’re a good father.”
“Keep that to yourself,” he said.
I looked at Martin. His eyes had teared up, and he tried to hide a sniffle.
“Are you pretending?” I asked.
“Yeah, you got me. It’s a thing I do.”
Chapter 35
Martin Ziegler told John about the car being left at Raw-k & Roll after I hastily constructed and negotiated an immunity deal for him.
After Martin left, I said, “Now that we know Billy B. didn’t steal dog food from Rick, I’m wondering if he came to my house to return what he stole from Buckingham’s?”
He smiled indulgently, making it obvious what he thought of my excessive faith in my fellow man.
“Wouldn’t that make more sense than a serial dog food thief?” I asked, in my defense.
“Yeah, I guess it would,” he said with a laugh. “Since he printed those articles of you and the Pet Place—”
“Pet Palace.”
“Whatever. It was the night before the break-in, which means it was planned. Why would he regret it so soon after he stole your merchandise?”
“It was so unlike him, or what I’ve learned about him,” I said.
“We may never know the why,” he said. “I’ve got to see if there’s anything useable in that car.” He smiled and walked me out.
Now I had to find Lady Anthea and get us back to Buckingham’s. Her phone was turned off, or she was screening my calls. She hadn’t checked in with Shelby either.
“Where are you?” I asked her when she finally called me back. “Why are you whispering?”
“I’m in Julie Berger’s hotel room,” she said.
“What are you doing there?”
“I came back here with her after the memorial service to talk to her. She was telling me that the UNESCO presidency was Howard Fourie’s dream, not David’s. Then David
came and now she’s outside with him.” She was talking fast.
“Can you hear anything they’re saying?”
“No, she closed the door.”
“Good! If the door’s closed, look through her stuff,” I said.
“I can’t go through her personal belongings,” she said. “I’ve been looking through what she’s left about, but I can’t find anything that contradicts what she’s told us about who she is. Wait, I need to see if she’s coming back in. I’ll look around the curtain.” A few seconds later, she called out, “Steady on!”
“What’s happening?”
“He’s proposing marriage!”
“How can you tell if you can’t hear them?” I asked.
“He’s down on one knee!” she said. “Julie’s about to cry. He’s taking her hand.” The play-by-play continued. “He’s placing a seashell on her finger where an engagement ring should go. Now he’s putting it in her hand.”
Lady Anthea had stopped her running commentary and the suspense was killing me. “What’s happening now?”
“Julie said yes and they’re kissing.”
“I’ll get the car and pick you up. She’ll be outside for a while so look around while you wait for me,” I said.
“Sue, do you think they knew one another before this week?” Lady Anthea asked. I was startled by the thought, but their relationship had progressed at greyhound speed. “Oh, my! Could she be coming here? She is!”
“Who is? What’s happening?” Her tone had me yelling for more information. I got in my Jeep and started driving to Savannah Road.
“Officer Statler is here. She’s talking to Julie. I’m going out there,” Lady Anthea said.
I heard the police officer saying, “Ms. Berger, I need for you to come with me to the station. We need to discuss issues surrounding your uncle’s murder.”
The officer’s words sounded canned; she had probably rehearsed it on the way over. So John thought Julie might be less likely to get upset if her interview was conducted by another woman. I guessed it was worth a try. And I doubted many police chiefs were this patient through a fainting spell, the crying, and the postponing of the interviews because she was too upset. The truth was she had information he needed. She might be able to connect Billy B. to Howard and David Fourie.