Jeffreys nodded at Skye’s deductions. “Right, then he showed it to me and asked me to sell it for him.”
“How did he know you’d do something illegal?”
“She”— Jeffreys used the gun to point to Alana —“always refused to admit that I dealt in stolen artwork, but Beau had no trouble accepting what I did.”
“He wouldn’t, considering his own propensity for criminal activity.”
“Exactly. And as to why I’m going to kill her — she’s an ungrateful bitch. I’ve been supporting her for years with my ill-gotten gains, and then she gets all self-righteous and says she can’t close her eyes to the fact that I killed her brother.
Stealing is one thing, murder, apparently, is another.” Skye held her breath. Was that someone in the hall trying to open the door? “So you bought her all those designer clothes, her trips to New York, and her BMW with dishonest money.” She had to keep him distracted.
“Yes, not to mention buying her that house.” He took a step closer. “Now, the reason I’m going to kill you is because you’re too nosy to live. All you had to do was mind your own business. I did you a favor getting rid of Hamilton. He would have sucked you dry.” Skye looked into Jeffreys’s eyes. Unlike her previous experience with murderers, his gaze was cold and sane. She could feel panic starting to bubble up inside of her. There was no room to maneuver. Her only hope was to keep him talking. “You killed Beau before finding out where he hid the painting, didn’t you? You were the one breaking into my house trying to find where he stashed it, weren’t you?”
“Yes. First through the window — then when you boarded them up, through the hole in the roof Hamilton made when he attempted to tear off your shingles.” Jeffreys gave a humorless laugh. “I’ve even been there when your cop boyfriend stopped by. He almost caught me the other night when I accidentally knocked over that stack of boxes and broke that mirror.”
“Did you do something to my space heater and faucet, too?”
“No, that wasn’t me.” Jeffreys moved even closer to Skye, standing mere inches from her with his left side nearly pressing against Alana’s bed.
“But you were the person dressed as a ghost at the storage building?” Skye kept pressing the nurse’s call button.
“Everyone said you never left the hospital.”
“I slipped away that night to take a shower, and I was just in time to see your headlights turn in. I thought maybe you’d stumble on the painting, even though I’d already searched there, so I followed you.”
“So you haven’t found it yet?”
“No. You went and hired a real contractor on me. Once she finishes with your roof, it will be a lot harder to get in.
Unless, of course”— he pointed the gun at Skye’s head —
“you’re gone. She’ll stop working and no one will be living there.” A sudden pounding on the door made him look behind him.
At that moment Alana’s right leg swung up and arced down on Neville’s wrist. The gun clattered to the floor.
From the hallway they heard a male voice order, “Get the keys from the nurses’ station.” Then the hammering got louder and the same voice shouted through the door, “Security. Open up in there.”
Without thinking, Skye jumped on the startled art thief and he toppled backward. Alana leapt off the bed, frantically searching the floor for the gun.
Skye had managed to grab Neville’s wrists, and her weight pinned him to the ground, but she knew she couldn’t hold on long. She shouted to Alana, “Forget the gun! Unlock the door!”
Alana raced to the door, flipped open the dead bolt, and flung it open. Pointing, she said, “That’s him. That’s the man who killed my brother.”
Two large men dressed in dark blue security uniforms ran past her. Between the two of them, they separated Skye from the murderer, but before they could secure Jeffreys, he scooped the gun from beneath him, pointed it at the guards, and edged toward the door. “I’ll shoot the first person who moves.”
As Jeffreys backed across the threshold, the senior guard yelled, “Doug, don’t let him get away.” Doug, the security man stationed in the hall, shoved a wheelchair into the escaping murderer’s path. Jeffreys fell backward, plopping into the chair, and his gun dropped to the floor. Doug, a strapping young man who no doubt had played high school football, tackled him, and instantly the other security guards rushed out of the room and secured him. Jeffreys’s curses trailed down the hall as they dragged him away.
While hospital personnel swarmed around Alana and Skye to see if they were okay, Skye looked at Alana and said, “You’re a lot stronger than I thought.” Alana appeared dazed. “I’m a lot stronger than I thought, too.”
A commotion by the door drew Skye’s attention. She turned back to Alana and took the other woman’s hand. “It looks like we’ll both need to be strong for a little longer.” Before Alana could ask why, they heard shouting, and Buck Peterson pushed his way into the room.
He strutted up to Skye and poked her in the chest with his index finger. “I shoulda known I’d find you here. Anytime there’s a ruckus, you’re always in the middle of it.”
“You’re welcome.” Skye stepped out of range of his jab-bing finger. “Glad I could help you catch the real killer.” Ignoring Skye’s comment, he turned to Alana. “And you.
Don’t think for a minute that this puts you in the clear, missy. Your part in all this will come out real soon. My men will have your boyfriend singing like Robinson Caruso.” Skye and Alana looked at each other. Alana was biting her lip and Skye felt a gurgle of laughter trying to escape.
Suddenly, the stress of the last week slammed into her, and Skye lost control. She looked down her nose at the sheriff and said, “If you mean Robinson Crusoe, that would imply that Neville will be performing on a desert island. And if you mean Enrico Caruso, that’s impossible. Caruso was a tenor and Neville is distinctly a baritone.” Peterson narrowed his eyes, then without warning back-handed Skye. She swayed from the vicious blow and the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. Instinctively, she stepped forward and jerked her knee up into his groin with as much force as she could muster. The sheriff squealed like a rubber bath toy and grabbed his nightstick from his belt.
As he raised the weapon in Skye’s direction, Alana launched herself at him. He flung her away like she was a piece of lint on his uniform and she landed hard, hitting her head against the wall.
Peterson smiled meanly at the injured women while fingering the bleeding scratch on his cheek. “Both your asses are mine. Assaulting a police officer is a felony.” Before either of them could reply, a voice from the door said, “I don’t think so, Peterson. I saw the whole incident, and I’ll be glad to testify at their civil trial when they sue you for police brutality if you try to bring charges against either of them.” A man wearing a Laurel city police chief’s uniform stood a few inches inside the room, his hand resting on his gun. “Now move away from the women, and go process a real criminal for a change.”
E P I L O G U E
“Ms. D, thank you so much for letting us have the party at your house.” Frannie Ryan rushed up to Skye and hugged her from behind.
Skye had considered canceling the celebration after Jeffreys’s arrest, but decided to go through with it. After all, his crime had nothing to do with the kids, and they deserved their reward for all the hard work they had put into the newspaper.
After freeing herself from the teen’s embrace, Skye turned to face the girl. “You all earned it. Winning the Blevins Award took a lot of talent.” Skye had been sitting at the kitchen table with the other adults, but now she stood. “I only wish the house was in better shape.”
“But it’s the coolest.” Frannie turned to Xenia, who had been standing silently in the doorway. Today she wore black jeans with a humongous black sweatshirt that fell to her knees. “Xenia says she can feel a presence in this house.
Later on we’ll have a séance and see if she can summon it.” Not quite knowing h
ow to react to Frannie’s last statement, Skye responded to her first one. “The house will be even cooler once my contractor finishes fixing it up. I’m just relieved the windows are in and my new roof is on.” It was Saturday afternoon, and Dulci’s crew had finished installing the last pane of glass and shingle that morning.
Justin sauntered into the room and up to Frannie. He whispered something in her ear, then led the giggling girl away. Xenia raised a sardonic eyebrow in Skye’s direction, then followed the other two teens.
“Should we see what they’re up to?” Skye looked at Trixie. “It worries me a little that Xenia has become so tight with Frannie.”
“They’ll be fine. Frannie’s a leader, not a follower. She won’t let Xenia get her into any trouble.” Her friend waved away Skye’s concern. “Besides, you were about to fill us in on the details of the Case of the Bumbling Art Thief.” Skye nodded, but resolved to check up on the teens in a little while. For now, she looked around the table. Everyone was supposedly there to help chaperone, but what they really came for was to hear what had happened to Neville Jeffreys. For the past few days, Skye had avoided discussing the matter.
May sat silently next to Jed, a pleading expression aimed toward Skye. Skye hadn’t talked to her mother since being locked in the bowling alley basement with Simon.
Vince and Loretta were also there, although not openly as a couple, and Vince had made it obvious that he expected Skye to fulfill her promise to tell their parents about his relationship with the attorney.
Uncle Charlie knew the least, not having been involved in the situation. This was an unusual position for him and he didn’t like it. A semipermanent scowl had settled on his face.
Skye knew she had postponed this moment for as long as possible. She braced herself and began her story. “Beau had made it a habit to look around the houses he was renovating in search of something to hold over the owner’s head in case they didn’t like his work, which was usually the case.
“When Beau was searching my house, he found a small painting that looked familiar to him. He had seen a similar one in the Chicago Tribune that had sold for over a hundred thousand dollars. Beau knew that his sister’s boyfriend dealt in stolen art, so he showed Neville the painting. Neville not only told Beau it was authentic, but that he had a buyer for it.” Uncle Charlie tilted his chair back, unconcerned when the old wood groaned under his weight, and commented,
“Then Hamilton got greedy, right?”
“Sort of. He somehow found a buyer on his own. We’re not sure how. Alana thinks maybe one of the online sites.” Skye stepped into the hallway, listened to make sure the teens were okay, then came back into the kitchen. “Anyway, in order to be discreet, Neville came by boat the day he was supposed to pick up the painting. Beau met him at the dock and told Neville he was selling it on his own. They struggled and Neville shot him.”
May piped in, “Okay, we know the part after that. You found Beau and tried to save him, but it was too late.” Skye felt a twinge of guilt. If only she had come directly home that day. “Neville killed Beau before he found out where Hamilton had stashed the painting. He searched Beau’s truck, his house, his storage building, everywhere, but no painting. Finally, he decided Beau must have left it somewhere in my house.”
Vince spoke up. “So he was the one who kept breaking in, moving things around, and making you think you had a ghost.”
“Sort of. He did break in, and he was the one who shoved the boxes into the dresser and kidnapped Alana, but he claims he didn’t turn the kitchen faucet into a geyser, and he had nothing to do with the space heater blowing up the other night.”
“Gotta expect that with an old house,” Jed commented.
Skye nodded, but wasn’t completely convinced. It still seemed odd to her that those things only happened when she and Wally were getting intimate. “Then on Monday night, Alana overheard a conversation between Neville and his buyer, and realized Neville was always away when something bad happened. She put two and two together and concluded that Neville was her brother’s killer. Foolishly, she confronted him. He convinced her she was mistaken, but then decided he had to get rid of her before she changed her mind and went to the police. He got her drunk, then gave her a margarita with an overdose of sedatives crushed into it.
“When Alana’s neighbor found her, and the doctors saved her, he couldn’t risk her telling the police about him. That’s why he stayed with her at the hospital. He was trying to find a time to finish killing her, but there was always staff nearby.
She faked being unconscious, waiting for him to leave, but she could never be sure he was really gone, not merely sitting outside her door.”
“Then you showed up.” Loretta crossed her arms.
“Did you know Neville was the murderer?” May asked.
“No, but I had figured out Beau was killed over a painting.” Skye explained how she’d found the art book and the newspaper clipping.
“How did the art book get thrown in the ditch?” Charlie questioned.
“We know Beau checked it out of the library using Alana’s card, because she got an overdue notice for it. We think Neville threw it out of the truck window when he drove off after killing Beau —probably to get rid of anything connecting Beau to the painting.”
“Why didn’t Jeffreys put Beau’s truck in a deeper lake?” Vince asked.
“Neville had been to the Recreation Club with Beau and Alana. He was a champion rower, or whatever you call it, so he knew to use Beau’s key to get in. But not being local, he didn’t know that particular lake was so shallow. By the time he realized the truck wouldn’t sink, it was stuck, and he couldn’t move it.
“Excuse me for a minute.” Skye went to check again on the kids. While sorting through Mrs. Griggs’s belongings, Skye had found an old trunk full of board games from the forties and fifties. She had put it out for the teens to explore.
Currently they were engaged in a wild game of Monopoly.
Skye smiled and went back to the kitchen, continuing her story. “The wet patches the police discovered in Alana’s trunk after her car was found at the Rec Club were from the inflatable raft Neville had been using to get back and forth from Alana’s house to mine. He must have deflated it and carried it away with him when he walked back to her place.” Loretta took a sip of her wine, then said, “I’m guessing Neville was the guy who stirred up Earl Doozier and got him to try to scare Dulci away.”
“Yep. Alana had told Neville some Doozier stories, especially the ones about how they’ve adopted me, so he figured Earl was the perfect stooge to rile things up.” Skye shook her head. “Dulci was too good a contractor, and she was getting things done too fast. Neville was afraid that, since I had changed the locks, he wouldn’t be able to get inside the house anymore once the windows were in and the roof fixed.”
“So what happened after Neville was arrested?” Trixie asked.
“I was lucky on two counts. First, Loretta wasn’t far away so she got there quickly to represent me.” Skye didn’t mention that the attorney was nearby because she was at Vince’s. “And second, the hospital was within Laurel’s city limits. Laurel’s police chief is a reasonable man, and between him and Loretta, Sheriff Peterson couldn’t be too awful to me.” Skye resisted the urge to touch her bruised cheekbone. She had decided not to tell anyone that Peterson had hit her, afraid that Charlie, Jed, or even Vince might feel they had to even the score with the sheriff.
“Still, the police kept you an awful long time,” Trixie commented.
“That’s because I had to give my statement about a hundred times Wednesday night. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it for a while, and put you all off until now.” Charlie took a swig of beer, allowed a soft burp to escape his lips, then said, “From what I hear, come the election, we won’t have to worry about Bucky Peterson anymore. My sources say that the people are fed up with him after he tried to blame Hamilton’s murder on his being a drug pusher.
Everyone
knows we don’t have none of that nonsense here in Scumble River.”
“Yep.” Jed nodded. “Peterson cackles a lot, but I ain’t seen no eggs yet.”
Skye refrained from reminding everyone of the meth lab that had been discovered last February.
“Are you getting back the money that you gave Beau for a deposit?” May asked, cutting to the important issue.
“Alana has promised to give it to me as soon as she gets his estate settled. Minus the materials that my new contractor managed to get ahold of.”
“How about the painting? Did you find it? Are you rich?” Trixie demanded.
This was the one thing she couldn’t tell them, especially with Xenia in the next room. “All I can say is the painting has been located. It turns out it belongs to someone else, so no, I won’t be rich.” Skye looked around. “Any more questions? No? Good, because I have some for you guys.” The others at the table squirmed as Skye pinned them all with a stare. “First, Dad, how did you get Simon’s cell phone number?”
“Ah.” Jed looked nervously at May. “He gave it to me in case of emergency when I was working on his mom’s car.”
“Oh.” Skye moved on. “Who called the sheriff that day I found Beau dying?”
“The EMT from the ambulance that picked Beau up the night he was shot is Buck’s nephew,” May offered. “I bet he phoned his uncle when he got the radio call to come out here.”
Skye turned to Loretta. “Why does Dulci need work?
She’s a fantastic contractor and should be booked months ahead.”
“I’m only telling you this because she said I could,” Loretta prefaced her answer. “Due to some events in Dulci’s past, she’ll only work for women, and there are not that many women-only jobs out there.”
Murder of a Real Bad Boy Page 23
