Death by Marriage

by Blair Bancroft

  But Boone, too, was early. I saw him turn in, but rather than park his car next to mine in a lot visible to a busy road, he followed the interior park road that ran along the woods and walked across the grass, approaching me from behind. I had kept an eye on his headlights and was facing him when he materialized out of the gloom.

  “I take it you’re not here,” I said as he slid onto the bench across from me.

  “Neither are you.”

  “Okay.” My blood surged. Super Clam was actually going to open his mouth.

  “Sorry about the cold,” he said. “I didn’t realize it would be so chilly. Haven’t got Florida weather straight yet—most of the time it’s hot as Hades.”

  “No problem.” I flashed a grin that included an encouraging eyebrow wiggles. “But you’d better make it worth my suffering frostbite.”

  Since the temperature was hovering somewhere around the mid-fifties, Boone returned my exaggeration with a wry waggle of his own. Today he was wearing a nicely tailored tweed jacket over a royal blue shirt, augmented by a tie with a design that looked remarkably like a waving field of wheat. Wheat several shades more golden than his cornsilk hair. In a nutshell, there was nothing country hick about Boone Talbot, plus he looked good enough to eat.

  “Okay,” he said briskly, “I must be acclimating because even to me it’s too cold for chitchat, so I’ll get to it before we freeze to the bench. “I don’t believe I thanked you for the photo.” Boone paused, glancing past me toward the woods. He drummed his fingers on the picnic table, obviously uncomfortable, before carefully, deliberately, focusing on my face. “I know I keep scolding you about butting into the investigation, Gwyn, but the truth is, that photo led us to a real can of worms and you deserve to know about it.”

  “Really? It wasn’t much of a photo.”

  “Good enough. Let’s just say we’re ninety percent certain she’s a woman who’s pulled scams like this a dozen or more times in as many different states. She really gets around. And we think she’s plugged into the scammer underground because she seems to have no trouble finding lonely old men who have far more money socked away than anyone ever guessed. Turns out, Janecek was loaded. Accounts in three different banks, and she got it all, to the tune of nearly four hundred thousand.”

  I gasped, I couldn’t help it. That little old man in a mostly blue collar neighborhood?

  “Right.” Boone offered a genuine Nebraska who’d-a-thunk-it grin. “That little old man had every last cent he ever earned. Or else he was selling porn on the side. And, no, there’s no evidence of that,” he added hastily. “Your classic penny-pincher, that was Basil Janecek.”

  “I pity his wife. No wonder she died first.”

  Boone gave me the weirdo look men tend to assume when females make feminist remarks, before continuing, “We haven’t come up with a name yet. She used a different alias every time. Sometimes she married them, sometimes she didn’t. But every last time she got Power of Attorney and every last cent of cash. We think she may be so tough to identify because she was born into a family of ‘travelers’, people who live off the grid, like Gypsies.” I winced. “No birth records, no Social Security, no formal schooling.”

  “I read about ‘travelers,’” I told him. “In a book on scams I got at the library.”

  Boone nodded. “Whole families exist off the grid, making their living from a variety of cons. ‘Pave the driveway, lady?’ ‘Fix your roof?’ Or maybe they’re involved in the rash of burglaries I told you about—where one or two distract the homeowner while a couple more go inside the house and take what they want.”

  “You think we actually have ‘travelers’ here in Golden Beach?” Not in our town. Sex and murder maybe, but not a whole family of super-smooth crooks.

  “It’s looking more and more likely. Penny-ante stuff so far, but I’m told it’s way more than Golden Beach has ever had before.”

  While we talked, I’d forgotten about the cold. Suddenly, it came back like a gust of arctic wind. I shivered. “What about Marshall and Eric Johnson? Did you check them out like I asked you to? I bet facial recognition would bring out a rap sheet a mile long.”

  “Gwyn . . .” Boone took a deep breath. Not hard to recognize that his magnanimous moment was coming to an end. “A cursory check revealed nothing more than we already know. “The names are so common we’d have to have a really good reason to try to track them any further, including using facial recognition.”

  “They’re crooks, I know they are.”

  “Maybe so, but as far as the Golden Beach Police Department is concerned, they are two well-dressed, church-going gentlemen who arrived in town about five months ago and have spotless records.”

  “No visible means of support,” I asserted stubbornly.

  “It’s not against the law not to work nine to five.”

  I glowered at a pine cone resting on top of the picnic table. “Okay,” I grumbled, “what did you find out about the Bairds?”

  “Your turn. Why don’t you tell me what you learned from Sherry Lambert?”

  Sometimes, even after all these years, I still forget how small a town Golden Beach is when you discount the northern retirees, the snowbirds, and the tourists. And Boone was right. I owed him, but telling him what Sherry said without mentioning Scott would be like a circus juggler keeping balls and blocks and triangles in the air at the same time. And I was no juggler.

  But . . . maybe . . . getting the truth in now might ease the tension later.

  My inner voice remained silent. I was on my own.

  So while Boone’s cop stare dissolved into the open-jawed gape of a Nebraska boy not that long off the farm, I told him what I learned about Sherry and Vanessa sticking it to Martin, whose own lifestyle was allegedly just as swinging.

  “You’re sure?” Boone asked when I wound down.

  “Sherry might lie to me,” I conceded, “but Scott was telling the truth. I’d swear to it.” I’d made a point of emphasizing Scott’s shock when told that some people thought he hoped to marry Vanessa for her money.

  To my surprise, Boone ignored my revelation about Scott, asking instead, “Kellerman was cheating on a wife like Vanessa?”

  “That’s what both Sherry and Scott told me. And that may have been what broke up his first marriage. Hard to tell. From what Evie Baird said, I thought maybe abuse, but it could have been Martin’s chasing ways. Have you learned anything more about the Bairds, by the way?” I snuck that one in while Boone was still on stun from the tale of Golden Beach’s swinging foursome.

  “Never stop, do you?” Boone said, scowling.

  “But I want to know.”

  “Actually—and this is the truth—I don’t know much more than you’ve already heard. Yes, Baird was supposed to get Martin’s half of the company. And, yes, Martin willed it to his wife, along with all the rest of his worldly goods. He’d evidently made a generous settlement on his first wife and set up a trust fund for his two kids. Vanessa can’t touch those, but she got everything else. Baird, citing the agreement made when he and Martin founded the company, is suing. But even though I suspect he has a strong case, it could take forever. He’s not happy.”

  “But he thought he’d gain the company when Martin died, so that’s motive, right?”

  “And the kids can’t touch the principal until they’re thirty, or until Martin’s death.”

  Oops. I stared. “You checked them out?” I couldn’t believe he’d actually told me that.

  “The son lives pretty well for a kid his age, but no serious debt, no apparent vices, and the girl’s still in college. Couldn’t get excited over either one of them.”

  “I’d thought maybe Evie Baird if she’d been abused,” I said carefully, “but now that it looks like Martin was a chaser, I have doubts. I don’t think she cared enough to want vengeance.”

  “There’s always the company,” Boone said. “Scorned ex glad to give her new hubby a hand up to full ownership and stick it to Kellerman at the
same time. And she’s bound to have known about his allergy.”

  “You know,” I said, leaning across the picnic table, “you’re so good you ought to be a cop.” We exchanged smiles. My toes tingled, and not from frost.

  Then Boone’s smile faded and the cop kicked back in. Guilty cop.

  “It’s nearly dark,” he announced abruptly. “We’ve both said more than we probably should, but I appreciate the information.”

  He walked me back to my car and watched me slide behind the wheel. Before closing the door, he leaned down and said, “Better tell your brother to get a lawyer. He and Brannigan both.”

  The door slammed and Boone was gone, loping off toward his Taurus, which was out of sight behind a stand of trees. I sat behind the wheel, not moving. My hands shook, my stomach heaved. My God, what had I done?

  Boone’s headlights pierced the gloom. He pulled to a stop at the entrance to the tennis parking area, giving me a long, questioning look.

  The Chief of Police was waiting.

  I started my Malibu, turned on the headlights, backed up, and drove out of the parking lot. Boone followed me the two blocks back to East Golden Beach Boulevard, then the long mile back to the Bypass, where he tossed me a wave as he turned left toward his condo. My light turned green, and I continued on over the Center Bridge toward the “Island” and home. And a highly awkward and unhappy scene with Mom and Scott.

  For two whole days my world went quiet. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought my life was back to normal. On the morning after my talk with Boone, Mom herded Scott to a criminal attorney, and he was now keeping a low profile, confining himself to computer games and pool between rescues at sea. Vanessa had been elusive—busy, busy, busy . . . or so she said when I tried to pin her down for an interview. No word from Chad, nothing more from Boone. No drop-in from Alyce or Terry with rumors piled on rumors.

  Letty came in for a reading, excitement about her wedding radiating from every elderly pore. She left in a huff, for the first time dissatisfied with what Crystal saw in her pretty pink ball. That was yesterday, and it seemed as if business had dried up along with Letty’s departure.

  The DreamWear phone hadn’t rung in hours. I actually jumped, nearly sliding off my stool, when a call came just before closing time. “Gwyn, it’s Peter Koonce.” His whisper was so soft I could barely hear him. “I’ve got some guys here trying to sell estate jewelry. Told ’em I’d have to look up a price in the backroom. Will you call your cop friend and ask him if I’m freaking over nothing?”

  “Peter, if it doesn’t feel right, dial 911.”

  “Please, Gwyn, I have to get back out front.” And men thought females had quirky minds!

  “Okay, see if you can stall them. I’ll try to get help.”

  My call to Boone went straight to voice mail. He must be in a meeting or something equally inaccessible. I didn’t want to involve any of my mall neighbors in a potentially dangerous situation, so I considered for all of three seconds and called Chad. I could only hope he was relatively sober.

  Chad’s cellphone was also offering me voice mail when he finally picked up with a decidedly unfriendly, “Yeah?”

  I sketched the problem in a couple of anxious sentences, then added, “There’s no way to tell if the jewelry’s hot, but I thought if you got here in time you could follow them.”

  “Chicken, sweetheart?”

  “You mean me?” I squeaked. “I don’t think—“ A dial tone rang in my ear. Was that a yes, or get lost?

  I locked up without doing any of my customary closing routine, jumped in my car, sped down the alley behind the stores, and zipped through the opening between Nature’s Foods and the Bingo Parlor. I pulled into a parking space two car-lengths back from the front of Antiques Etcetera, turned off my headlights, and peered through the broad plate glass window. Two men were at the counter, obviously haggling with Peter over price. So far, so good. Peter’s suavity had slipped a bit, his dark hair mussed where he’d run his hands through it a time or two. The smaller of the two men appeared to be getting itchy, while the much larger of the two—think pro-football center—looked like he was prepared to stay all night to get the price they wanted.

  Money exchanged hands. They were about to come out, and I was all alone out here . . . I must be out of my mind. I screeched—I couldn’t help it—as my driver door was flung open and a strong arm dragged me out.

  “Stupid!” Chad growled as he pulled me across the deserted parking lot toward his battered ranch wagon, which he’d parked as far from a security light post as possible. Damn! Besides scaring me half to death, his breath was enough to knock me over. I wasn’t getting in a car with him . . . but of course I did, because our Mutt and Jeff bandits, or whatever they were, had left Antiques Etcetera and were getting in their car, a tan SUV just like a thousand others on Florida roads. I fastened my seat belt. I had a sneaking suspicion that, drunk or sober, Chad would be able to follow them.

  The SUV turned right onto the Bypass and, a block later, made a left onto East Golden Beach Boulevard. Past Edge Park, past the police station, straight east toward the far edge of town. Finally, we left houses and condos behind, in favor of plant and tree nurseries, truck farms, and occasional cow pastures. We were not, however, destined for the end of the road, where Golden Beach Boulevard turned to dirt before it dead-ended at the jungle-like Arcadia River. At a church decorated with a painted rainbow façade, the SUV made a hard left onto a road that went straight as an arrow past horse farms and ostrich farms. When that road ended, an abrupt right had us crossing the Arcadia on a concrete bridge before another ninety-degree right led us down into a community of people who preferred privacy to town amenities. Here, the roads were no longer straight, but meandered along the contours of the snakelike river and inland perhaps three-quarters of a mile on roads that must have been laid out by a mad maze designer.

  The SUV and the ranch wagon seemed to be the only cars moving on this side of the river, so surveillance became a lot tougher. Chad had to drop back. I made a slight protesting noise as he turned off the wagon’s headlights. “Wanta get shot?” he taunted.

  This was absurd. I wasn’t cut out to be brave.

  “Keep an eye out for the SUV. I can’t get close enough to see if they turn in.”

  That I could do. Seamstresses have to have good eyesight. But the road we were on seemed to be ending with not a sign of the SUV we followed into this cul-de-sac. We’d missed them, darn it. But how?

  And then I caught a flash of light through the mass of trees ahead. “There! There must be some way to get back there.”

  Chad slowed to a crawl, peering into the darkness. Streetlights were among the amenities the inhabitants of this neighborhood had eschewed. And there it was, a narrow dirt road almost completely overhung by live oaks, cabbage palms, and slash pines. A scary, one-way path to . . . what? “Uh, Chad, I don’t think—”

  But the ranch wagon, obviously accustomed to dirt roads, seemed to make the turn of its own accord. We crept along, headlights still off, Spanish moss occasionally swishing across the front window like some gray creepy-crawlie out of a horror movie. A quick glance at Chad showed his body on alert, eyes gleaming, even though their blue-green had turned to indigo under nothing more than moonlight. He was enjoying this. He was on the hunt, and he loved it.

  Wasn’t that why I’d called him? Somewhere inside his ruined hulk was a spark of the old Chad, and I had a feeling he might just have found it.

  There seemed to be a faint glow ahead, as if from the windows of a house. About half way between the glow and the beginning of the dirt road, we came to a wide place in the road, a man-made turnout, obviously created as a pass-point. If two cars met on the narrow road, one of them wouldn’t have to back up the entire distance. Chad pulled into the tiny turnout and parked. “Stay here,” he ordered. “If you can manage it, turn this thing so it’s heading out. No lights!” Before I could protest, he’d melted into the trees. Vanished like a wraith
into the Florida jungle. No way he hadn’t done this before. Could I pick ’em, or what?

  With only a few bumps and grinds I slid across the gear box to the driver’s seat. I hesitated before starting the engine, somehow certain the noise was going to startle every creature in the woods into a cacophony of noise. Silly. Chad just turned the engine off. Nothing frightening about turning it back on. The old wagon purred to life. I reached for the gears and froze in horror. I glanced at my feet. Sure enough, the miserable wagon had a clutch. Scott had tried to teach me once and given the whole thing up in disgust in under fifteen minutes, certain I was killing his lovely Vette. Not that this old wagon couldn’t take my fumblings—it probably wasn’t the first time it had suffered from an ignoramus behind the wheel.

  Mentally, I reviewed the gear positions Scott had tried to teach me. Gently, carefully, I eased the gear shift into first— Ee-grind-eeee. My stomach lurched. Belatedly, I used my left foot to ram the clutch to the floor. I tried again. Blessedly, the gear shift did not scream in anguish. If I was lucky, that was all the shifting I’d have to do. But the road was tight, and making it in one turn was out of the question. Fortunately, I got Reverse right on the first try, and after that it was just a case of persistence and keeping my hands from shaking so hard the gear shift wouldn’t move at all.

  At last I was settled with the wagon’s nose facing home. I heaved a sigh and turned the engine off. And that’s when I heard it, a great crashing noise in the underbrush just behind the car. Chad! They’d seen him, he was running for his life. I fumbled for the keys, turned the engine over. The noise rose to a roar. Chad and a multitude of pursuers. They were going to kill him! I tromped on the clutch, jammed the gears into first, then, praying hard, I craned my neck to peer out the rear window. Dammit, Chad, where are you?