“Beau?” The plaintive female voice that greeted me definitely didn’t belong to Beverly Piedmont Jenssen. By the time I located the bedside lamp and managed to switch it on, I had sorted out Naomi Pepper’s trembling voice. She was sniffling and sounded as though she’d been crying.
“Can I come see you?” she asked. “Please?”
I had been lying on the bed naked except for a pair of shorts. Once I could see the clock, I saw it was twenty of one. “Now?” I asked, not very graciously. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I’ve got to talk to someone,” she said. “And not on the phone, either. I’m standing here in the lobby by the purser’s desk. People are staring at me.”
There was a part of me that wanted to say, So go back to your room. But I didn’t. Naomi sounded far too upset to be given that kind of advice.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Capri, four-five-four,” I told her.
“Good,” she said, sounding instantly better. “I’ll be right down.”
I jumped off the bed and straightened the wrinkled covers. Then I pulled my shirt and pants back on. I was just tying my shoelaces when Naomi Pepper knocked on the door. Some women can cry and look good at the same time. Naomi wasn’t one of them. She looked like hell. Her face was red and puffy; her eyes were bloodshot; her makeup, smeared under her eyes, had left a smudgy trail down both cheeks.
When I opened the door, she fell into my arms and sobbed against my shoulders. “What’s the matter?” I asked.
I led her into the room and eased her down on the love seat. Then I filled a glass with ice from the ice bucket and poured her some bottled water out of my fridge. If I’d had something stronger, I would have offered her that. She looked as though she could have used it. She gulped the water gratefully and then subsided against the back of the couch while she waited through a full-blown case of hiccups.
“What’s wrong?” I asked again when the hiccups finally stopped.
“They told,” she said simply.
“Who told what?” I asked.
“Virginia and Sharon,” Naomi said, as tears once more welled in her eyes. “I told them about Harrison and me this afternoon, and I swore them to secrecy. But they told anyway. I just spent two hours with an FBI agent named Todd Bowman. He saw the security camera video of me leaving Margaret’s room right about the time she went in the water. He didn’t come right out and say so, Beau, but I think he believes I killed Margaret. He thinks I had one of the waiters from the ship help me do it.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“Of course not. How can you even ask such a thing?” she demanded indignantly.
There were two answers to that question—the short answer and the real one. The real one had to do with a woman named Anne Corley—a woman as lovely as she was dangerous—who had walked into my life one afternoon at a cemetery on Queen Anne Hill and had thrown my whole world into a tailspin. Of all the killers I’ve ever met, she was the one who absolutely blindsided me. I fell in love with Anne Corley too hard and too fast. At the time there were plenty of red flags, all of which I blithely ignored. I ended up betting everything on Anne’s presumed innocence. When I lost, I lost big.
I chose to give Naomi Pepper the short answer. “I’m an ex-cop,” I explained. “I spent most of my career at the Seattle Police Department interviewing homicide suspects or murder victims’ grieving family members and friends. Someone who admits to having had a serious confrontation with a homicide victim within an hour or so of the time of death and who was seen in the victim’s presence at around the same time is bound to be high on any list of possible suspects. Although, if you are a suspect, Agent Bowman should have read you your rights. Did he?”
Naomi shook her head and then blew her nose.
“Or offer you access to a lawyer?”
“No, but how could he? Where would I get a lawyer on a cruise ship in the middle of the night?”
I thought of my friend and lawyer, Ralph Ames, who wouldn’t be above hiring a float plane and/or a helicopter if he had felt that kind of extreme measure was necessary. “It can be done,” I told her. “Until you have an attorney present, you probably shouldn’t agree to talk to Bowman again.”
That was good advice, but I doubt she heard it. “Why would Sharon and Virginia go and tell like that?” Naomi resumed. “When I told them about Harrison and me, I begged them to keep it quiet. They both promised that they wouldn’t say a word. How could they betray me like that when they’re both supposed to be my friends? You can see why I don’t want to go back to the room, can’t you? How can I face them knowing what they’ve done?”
“They may not have done anything,” I said quietly.
Naomi Pepper frowned. “What do you mean?”
Here it was—fess-up time. “Sharon and Virginia didn’t spill the beans about you and Harrison Featherman,” I told her. “I did.”
She looked stunned. “You? But why?”
“Because I had to, Naomi. The law compels me to. Todd Bowman is conducting a homicide investigation. It’s against the law for anyone to withhold information in that kind of case, but that rule is far more stringently applied when the person doing the withholding happens to be a police officer or an ex-police officer. Civilians may be able to keep their mouths shut and get away with it, but judges don’t look kindly on it when cops and ex-cops try to pull the same stunt.”
Naomi looked even more stricken. “That means you must think I killed her, too, don’t you!” she said accusingly.
“I didn’t say that.”
She shook her head and rose from the couch. “You didn’t have to,” she replied. “I’ll be going then and leave you alone. Maybe I can find a place to sit in one of the lounges and wait for the sun to come up. Once we get to Skagway, I’ll decide what to do.”
“Sit,” I ordered. “Sit and listen.”
“Why should I?” she demanded in return. “So you can read me my rights, too?”
“I used to be a cop, Naomi, and I may be one again, but right now I’m a civilian the same as you—a civilian who’s trying to be your friend. What exactly did Agent Bowman say?”
For a time Naomi stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. Finally she sat back down. “He said that I’m not allowed to leave the ship without checking with him first. He made it sound like I’m under house arrest or something. How can that be? Margaret was my friend. I’d never kill her.”
“She disappeared within hours of hearing about the relationship between you and her ex-husband,” I said evenly. “Think about how that looks. Everything is going along more or less smoothly. Then, as soon as she learns that one critical piece of information, she’s out of here. I’m sure Todd Bowman believes there’s a connection, and I don’t blame him because so do I. How did Margaret find out?”
Too worn down to argue, Naomi huddled more deeply into the couch. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Margaret must have given you some idea.”
Naomi shook her head. “When I talked to her she was a raving lunatic and not making much sense. She said something about Harrison rewriting his will, but I can’t imagine what that would have to do with me.”
It was like a camera lens shifting into focus. For the first time I saw what had happened in an entirely different light. “Wait a minute. Has Harrison Featherman been giving you money?” I asked.
Naomi looked at me briefly, then her eyes shifted away. She nodded. “Yes,” she said softly.
“Why?” I asked. “For how long?”
“Harrison knew how difficult things were for me. And after Gary died, it was that much worse. I really had to struggle. Gary never believed in life insurance, you see, so there wasn’t any of that—not a dime. And the medical bills were appalling. I took in roommates in order to meet the mortgage payments. Otherwise, Missy and I would have lost the house and been thrown out on the street. When we split up, I did manage to get Melissa on the reduced-price lunch program at school. I
even went so far as to apply for food stamps once, but they wouldn’t give them to me. They said I had too many assets.”
“And so Harrison helped you.”
Naomi nodded, but when her eyes met mine, what I saw in them was defiance. “Yes, he helped me. Missy is his daughter, too. He wasn’t about to let her starve.”
“And when he gave you this help, how did he do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he write you checks?”
“Of course not. Those would have shown up in his checkbook. Margaret or Chloe would have seen them.”
“But Harrison and Margaret were already divorced by then. How would she have had access to his checkbook?”
Naomi bit her lip. “He was helping me before they were divorced.”
“And before you and Gary separated?”
She nodded.
“So you’re saying Chloe doesn’t know about any of this, either?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about Melissa?”
“There was no reason for her to know.”
“So how did Harrison manage to pull this off and give you money without anyone else knowing about it?”
“He made cash deposits to my checking account from time to time. That’s all.”
“And you paid taxes on this money?”
“Well, no. Not really. What he gave me I considered gifts.”
“How many gifts?” I asked. “How much money?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. A couple thousand a year, probably. More when Missy needed counseling.”
“And now?” I persisted.
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you tell me that Missy was living away from home?”
Naomi nodded. “She is now.”
“And is Harrison Featherman still helping out?”
“Only a little.”
I sighed and shook my head.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Naomi demanded. “Are you judging me? Have you ever been poor, Mr. Beaumont, so poor that when you got to the check stand with your groceries you didn’t know how much food you’d have to put back on the shelves because you didn’t think you’d have enough money to pay for all of it?”
When I was a kid living with my single-parent mother, we would have gone hungry from time to time if it hadn’t been for the kindhearted baker downstairs who made sure whatever baked goods he didn’t sell somehow made their way upstairs to our apartment. But I was the kid then, not the parent. My mother would have known far more about Naomi Pepper’s side of the charitable-donation table than I did.
“I’ve been that poor,” I said. “But it was when I was a kid growing up in Ballard. I wasn’t the parent worrying about feeding my child in those days. All I wanted to know back then was what was for dinner. I may be in no position to judge you, but Todd Bowman is.”
“Todd Bowman?” Naomi asked. “What does he have to do with any of this?”
“Did you tell him about the money?”
“No. Why?”
“Because Todd Bowman works for the FBI. When he finds out about Harrison Featherman’s cash-only deposits—and he’s bound to find out—he’ll come to only one conclusion.”
“Which is?”
“Blackmail, which happens to be a very good motive for murder. When you talked to her, did Margaret Featherman threaten to blow the whistle on you?”
“You mean, was she going to tell Chloe? The answer to that is yes. In fact, that was the last thing she said to me—that she was going to tell. I told her to go ahead. I told her that if she wanted to wreck her daughter’s life, that was up to her, but I didn’t kill her, Beau. I swear to God I didn’t.”
“When you came out of her room, why didn’t you close the door?”
“Close it?” Naomi asked. “I thought I did. But I was so upset, if it wasn’t closed properly, I must not have noticed.”
“Did you see anyone else in the corridor?”
“No, no one. The hallway was empty all the way from Margaret’s room to the elevator. Why?”
“Did you notice anything about the service door directly across from Margaret’s room?”
“No. I didn’t even know there was one.”
“So you didn’t see that it was slightly ajar?”
“No. Are you saying someone was hiding there?”
“Yes.”
“Then that must be the killer, the person Todd Bowman thinks is my accomplice in all this. Is that right?”
I nodded. “Let me ask you something, Naomi. In addition to Virginia and Sharon, is there anyone else on board this ship that you know?”
“Chloe and Harrison, of course. And I know Leila by sight. Do they count?”
“Yes.”
“But aside from them, there’s no one else. At least, no one else I’m aware of so far. Why?”
“Is there anyone else who might have known about the payments to you from Harrison Featherman? Anyone at all?”
“It’s not something I’m proud of,” Naomi said quietly. “It isn’t the kind of thing one goes through life bragging about.”
“You mentioned Margaret said something about Harrison Featherman rewriting his will. What exactly did she say?”
“She told me she had found out about the rewritten will and that Melissa was being treated on a par with Chloe and the baby Leila is expecting. That threw me for a loop because I knew nothing about it. Harrison never mentioned a word of it to me.”
“How did Margaret find out?”
“I have no idea. She didn’t say. Maybe she bribed someone who works for the estate-planning lawyer who did the work. Anyway, then she asked me straight out if Melissa was Harrison’s child, and I said yes. Then she said, ‘I thought so,’ and how could I do that to her and how could I betray her that way? I tried to explain to her that I was desperate to have a baby, that Gary and I had tried and tried. After that she got real quiet, then she said, ‘I suppose you think you’re the only one who ever wanted to have a baby?’ I don’t know what she meant by that. I mean, she and Harrison had Chloe, didn’t they? Then it was like she just went haywire. Nuts! She started screaming obscenities at me and throwing things—her shoes, her purse. She told me to get out, and I did.”
“Chloe is an only child?” I saw at once that was the wrong question. “I mean, she was raised as an only child.”
Naomi nodded.
“Did Harrison and Margaret try having another child after Chloe was born?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Naomi answered. “They may have. We never talked about it.”
“But I thought you were good friends.”
“Just because women are friends doesn’t mean they talk about everything,” Naomi returned. “And I know men don’t talk about a lot of that stuff, either,” she added. “Some things are too painful to mention.”
Naomi Pepper had me there.
“You said she threatened to tell Chloe. What would that have accomplished?”
“I’m not sure,” Naomi replied. “I think Margaret thought it would drive a wedge between Harrison and Chloe. The two of them have always been incredibly close from the very beginning, from when Chloe was just a toddler. I think Margaret was terribly jealous of the way they got along. And then, to have Chloe and Leila end up being friends as well . . .” Naomi shook her head. “That just drove Margaret wild.”
“Do you think it was the fact that Harrison was making financial provisions for all his children that upset Margaret so? Would what he did in rewriting his will have had any adverse impact on Margaret’s income, for example?”
“I doubt it,” Naomi said. “Margaret always claimed that she had the best divorce attorney her husband’s money could buy. When they did the property settlement, it was supposedly a clean, cut-and-dried deal. Margaret said she didn’t want to be in a position of having to wait around for the mailman to know whether or not the support check was going to show up. And as far as I know, she never had to worry abo
ut that.
“At the time of the divorce I remember Harrison was stretched pretty thin financially. He had a couple of tough years, but eventually he worked his way out of it. Whatever settlement Margaret got, it must have been substantial, and I’m sure she invested it wisely. As far as I know, money or the lack of it has never been a problem for her.”
“She didn’t have to work?”
“She worked, all right,” Naomi conceded. “But it was because she wanted to, not because she had to.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know, really. About the time Chloe went off to kindergarten, Margaret went back to school and got a Ph.D. in something from the U Dub. Genetics, I think. I was a liberal arts major, so all that hard science stuff leaves me cold. I don’t understand it at all. And that was something else the four of us never talked about—work. It wasn’t all that happy a topic for any of us. When we got together, it was to have fun.”
“What did you talk about then?”
“Old times,” Naomi said wistfully. “About the times when we were young and beautiful, and didn’t have a care in the world. Back then everything was ahead of us and nothing was impossible.”
“You were telling me about Margaret’s divorce attorney. What about you?” I asked. “Did you have one?”
“Not really,” Naomi said. “There was the guy who was supposedly handling my divorce but then I had to stop the proceedings because Gary moved back home. He’s really the only one I’ve ever used, and he wasn’t particularly good. At the time, Margaret suggested I use hers, but of course I never could have afforded him.”
“Do you have any criminal defense attorneys in your circle of friends?”
“No. Do I need one?”
“In my opinion, yes. What’s your plan for tomorrow?”
Naomi shrugged. “We dock in Skagway in the morning. We had all planned to take that narrow-gauge railroad trip up White Pass, but since Todd Bowman told me I can’t get off the boat without his permission and since I’m damned if I’ll ask him, I guess I won’t be doing that.”
I reached over to the bedside table, picked up my wallet, and shuffled through it until I found one of Ralph Ames’ cards. The card was one of his new ones that listed both his Seattle and his Scottsdale numbers.
Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101) Page 15
