by Linda Welch
I bet. I’m sure turning up on the doorstep surprised her. We knew she was home, and alone but for her staff. She could have made an excuse and had her housekeeper say she was too busy to see us, but she wanted to know why we were here.
“I’m working in my office, would you care to join me?”
I followed Royal up the staircase. We turned along a landing the same width and length as below. Light from floor-to-ceiling windows at front and rear of the house fully illuminated the area, part of it walled on both sides, the rest and the stairwell guarded by a banister.
In a fluttering, ankle-length yellow chiffon dress, Patty projected the same casual elegance I remembered from our last meeting. She went through an open doorway on the left, stood aside to let us pass and closed the door behind us. We were in a study paneled in polished maple with floors to match, and a narrow floor-to-ceiling window facing the street. A beautiful fire-screen of textured stained glass and enamel calla lilies stood before a plain white marble fireplace. A curio cabinet held a collection of antique miniatures. Cabinets with glass doors protected books of all sizes.
Patty went around us and sat behind a huge, polished walnut burl desk, so clean and clutter-free it looked more like an accessory, a statement of status, than a workstation. She didn’t offer us a seat, but we sat in the two padded leather armchairs facing her anyway.
Away from the listening ears of her staff, Patty dropped the act. No pleasant smile now; her face stiff and tight, her voice cool, with a hard edge. “I hope we can keep this brief, I have a full calendar. How may I help you?”
Although it didn’t show, she had to be worried. I bet she was tied in knots inside. She must have gone over every possible scenario in her mind and come up with some unpleasant reasons why we came to Boston and turned up unannounced at her home. Maybe she thought we’d try blackmail.
We didn’t want Patty’s money. We wanted her where she belonged, behind bars.
You look at two things when you try to pin down a perpetrator: motive and means. As it turned out, Patricia Norton had both. Had she left me and Royal alone, that would have been the end of it. With Fowler and Clarke dead, Pickens behind bars, Paul and Sylvia Norton found - albeit not in the land of the living - we were done. Patty would have been a file in my drawer. But after the attempt on our life, Royal and I researched Scott and Patricia Norton extensively, delving deeper than before. We discovered that in the event of Paul Norton’s death, Mrs. Patricia Norton became not only the sole beneficiary of Scott’s estate, but also the family Trust. Sadly, the heir died only days before his uncle passed away.
Motive and means. In the end, identifying the mastermind behind the killings in England and the attempts on our lives was a matter of logic, but still conjecture in the eyes of the Law. Royal and I were positive we had our man - I mean woman - but we had no evidence. So we talked to our friend FBI Agent Larsen, who became very interested indeed, because what we told him, the way we joined the dots, just plain made sense. He did have a hard time swallowing our assurance Patty would let her ego get the better of her to the extent she would confess. The part in movies where the villain confesses because they’re sure it won’t go any farther, it does not happen in real life unless they are utter morons. Patricia Lillian Norton was no moron. We just had to make the FBI think she was.
Police departments have civilian informers on their payroll, the FBI rewards confidential informants, and neither is above putting their informers in the line of fire if they will get a conviction. They get results any way they can. I know it, you know it, just as we know the CIA does a lot more than gather information.
We became FBI informants practically overnight.
What Patty told us would stand as evidence as long as we didn’t use threats, or blackmail, or another method of coercion. And if our plan didn’t work, our new friends would be none the wiser. We just had to remember two agents sat in their mobile operations center, disguised as a utility van parked opposite Patty’s house, listening to everything we and Patty said.
This is how we saw it: Scott hired Peter Cooper to find the heir to the Norton Family Trust, but went into a rapid decline once he’d set the wheels in motion. Patty intercepted Cooper’s messages and emails. She somehow used her money and influence to hire Fowler and Pickins, and made Peter Cooper disappear. But Scott was not as feeble as Patty thought, or perhaps he rallied, because he wanted to hire another detective when Cooper went off his radar. He left that to his dear wife. Under the eyes of Scott’s attorneys, Patty had to follow through. She would hire someone, but before she did it was time to go to the source and get rid of the threat to her inheritance once and for all. She sent her henchmen after the Nortons.
Two weeks later she hired a small agency from a hick town, detectives likely ignorant of the customs and procedures in rural England, detectives she did not think could find anything. Detectives recommended for their expertise finding a lost kitty. I bet she spoke of us in glowing terms. Why, those two incompetents could even confirm the heir’s death. It would be perfect. Although their shades lingered in the crypt below Saint Thomas, their bodies waited in a moving van in Scotland, ready to be driven into a loch at the right moment.
Then Scott died. How convenient. Except for those pesky hick detectives. They found something; they found a lot of somethings. That altered her opinion of us and she worried we would put the pieces together, so she arranged to get rid of us.
“I don’t believe I heard you correctly, Miss Banks.”
I wanted to knock her from the chair. I pictured her on the floor, legs splayed and that flowing dress rucked above her knees while I tried to shake the sting from my knuckles. I even saw two bloodstained teeth travel a thin red stream from her half-open mouth to her chin. If there’s one thing I’m not short on, it’s imagination.
“It’s simple, Mrs. Norton. We want the truth.” I spread my hands. “We put most of it together, we’d like you to fill in the gaps.”
A pained expression formed on her face. “You’re not making sense.”
“There are always trails of one kind of another. We’re good at following them.”
Her expression hardened. “Bullshit, Miss Banks.”
I didn’t think so, not entirely. I thought there was a trail, although tracing it would take time. You see, Patty had a noteworthy idiosyncrasy: she regularly withdrew large amounts of cash from her accounts because she paid cash for most of her personal expenses, a rare choice of payment nowadays for someone of Patty’s social standing. Clothes, jewelry, objet d’art, dining out, nearly anything she fancied. In fact she paid the agency fee in cash and you should have seen my face when it was delivered. Seemed to me, this could be how she paid her accomplices.
Looking at her financial records didn’t help, because you only keep receipts needed for tax-reporting. You don’t keep every receipt for Arby’s, and Patty could blow a thousand treating her girlfriends to lunch. Her dealings with her British co-conspirators and her hired assassin in the US could be virtually untraceable cash transactions. I say virtually, because I bet the FBI would eventually find a connection. They’re good at that.
How did Patty do it? As no transactions showed up in her British accomplices’ bank accounts, she could have mailed cash. Sure there’s the risk an envelope or package of cash can go astray in the mail, but she had plenty to spare if that happened. Someone, somewhere in the States bought British pounds, or someone connected to Fowler or Pickins would be exchanging a wad of American dollars for British pounds one of these days. If I was right, the operation could be traced back to Patty, no matter how far-flung. She must have accomplices here and in England, someone with the reach and know-how to find a couple of corrupt police officers. Find her cohorts, they would lead back to Patty.
But finding and following the trail would take time, which could stretch to years. Even then, Patty’s attorneys could keep a case in limbo God knows how long. Unless we got a confession. Royal and I were determined to get that confe
ssion. We wanted Patty put away in the very near future, not ten years hence. The woman tried to kill us. This was personal.
“Bullshit? Is it?” My mouth was a slit smile. “You were so clever with the Nortons. How come you lost your smarts when it came to getting rid of me and Royal?”
She calmly eyed us across her desk. Not a twitch, not a narrow look from her eyes marred her composure. “I don’t know what you mean, Miss Banks. Perhaps you could clarify.”
She didn’t suggest we leave; she wanted to know how much we knew.
Enough with the foreplay. Time to take off the gloves. I slid my eyes at Royal.
A blur, and he squatted beside Patty and took her hand. She started upright. Royal stroked her hair with his free hand and she lapsed back with a small sigh. I didn’t like what Royal did and he wasn’t crazy about it, but Patty had to talk and this was the only way we could make her.
We had discussed this at some length. Unlike many Gelpha, Royal despises their way of overpowering a human by manipulating their senses, making you want them so much on a sensual, sexual level, you will do anything they suggest. But he had shown me another ability a couple of times, and he more or less admitted he used it on perps during his days as a detective for Clarion PD. To put it simply - and I don’t know how else to describe it anyway - he can make a person relax to the extent they don’t even think about controlling what they say. He would lull Patty, relax her, make her so damned comfortable her defenses crumbled and she couldn’t concentrate well enough to lie.
What he was about to do made me intensely uncomfortable, but the woman tried to kill us and did arrange the murder of Cooper and the Nortons, and was indirectly responsible for the deaths of Johnny Marsh and William Clarke. Even if the FBI found evidence to prove my theory about her method of payment, she could still remain at liberty for years while the legal system sparred. We couldn’t allow that.
Royal had to work on her with finesse. We didn’t want Patty to slur or fall asleep. She had to respond with her own words, in a natural tone.
Royal nodded. I nodded back.
“You may as well tell us,” I said, “because we’re not leaving till we get answers, Patty.”
She didn’t respond. She would not talk to me, but she would speak to Royal.
“I know what you think,” Royal said for the benefit of listening ears, “but we are not interested in blackmail or revenge. We just want to know. And what about you? You are not a bad person at heart; you must have had your reasons. It must be eating you up inside.”
I could see she struggled with herself. She felt the wrongness. Royal’s fingers trailed down her hair to her ear, down her neck. “Why did you do it, Patty?”
She sighed. “Do what?”
“Have the Nortons killed.”
“Scott was dying. The money from the family Trust would go to Paul. I had to get rid of him.”
“Because?”
“So it would come to me.”
“You already have more money than I can imagine. Could you not live on that?”
“Why should I? I was Scott’s wife, it’s my money, I earned that money.” She grimaced, grunted in her throat. “I refused to let some little oaf with a feeble connection to a senile old man take it from me.”
“You knew Scott had an heir in England when you married him and you would not be able to get at the Trust.”
“No, I didn’t. Not until Scott became frail and told me.”
“I see. So you arranged Paul’s death, and that of his wife. But why the investigator, Peter Cooper?”
Patty seemed relaxed. Her voice came out a little breathy, but not unnaturally so. “Scott told me he hired a British investigator. When his condition deteriorated, he asked me to take care of everything.” She chuckled. “So I did. Scott never knew Cooper called to say he located the Nortons.”
“You had Cooper abducted and any mention of the Nortons removed from his office, and later killed, but … what happened then, Patty?” Royal encouraged.
“Scott knew he neared the end. He became desperate when he heard nothing from Cooper. He insisted I hire another firm to look for Cooper and the Nortons.”
So she came to us, partners with one helluva reputation for finding lost kitties. She didn’t think we had a hope in hell of finding the Nortons.
“You paid your accomplices to kidnap and kill the Nortons.”
She nodded.
“What was that, Patty?” he asked.
“Yes. Pickins and Fowler killed the Nortons.”
“On your orders?”
“Yes. I told them to do it.”
“You paid them?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“In cash. Half up front, the rest upon completion.”
“They hired Clarke to run us down. You told them to kill us.”
“Absolutely not.” She made a tcha noise. “The fools thought you were getting too close. And you were. Although I was angry at the time, now I wish they succeeded.”
His jaw tightened; he let out a breath which flared his nostrils. “That would have saved you a lot of bother, because when Fred Sturgis told you what happened in England, you worried we would put two and two together, so you arranged to have me and Tiff killed.”
“Yes.” She looked up at him, smiling. “I didn’t want to. I liked you, both of you, but I couldn’t take the risk.”
Oh boy. I could hardly contain my excitement. I wanted to bounce up and down in the chair.
“Who did you hire to kill me and Tiff?”
She waved one hand. “I don’t know his name, he didn’t know mine.” The statement appeared to please her.
We already knew who tried to run us off the road and into the lake: James Collier, a guy with a record as long as I’m tall. Getting Patty to name him would have been a bonus.
Royal met my eyes. I nodded. We had enough. The Bureau could get the rest from her using conventional methods.
He was back in the chair next to mine in a flash.
Patty sagged. She clung to the arms of her fancy office chair. Her mouth made a grimace as she fought for words. Poor thing, her confusion was something to see. She recalled every word she said, but couldn’t understand why she said it.
I put gentle sympathy into my tone. “Guilt is a heavy burden to bear. I’m sure you feel much better getting that off your chest.”
I was so enjoying this.
She fumbled for her phone, knocked it off the cradle and retrieved it with a trembling hand. “I’m calling my attorneys. They will drop what they’re doing and be here in twenty minutes.”
“Go ahead, it’s your right.” I pulled down the neck of my shirt so she could see the tiny bug pinned to the underside of my collar. “You probably want to tell them our friends outside got your confession on tape.”
The agents would be here in a moment. They could whip her into custody for questioning on the strength of the recording, while the department did double-time procuring an arrest warrant. No doubt the FBI would stall her attorneys till they had that piece of paper in their hands. Her lawyers would suggest she take a physical examination, but medical professionals would not find a mark on her; a panel of blood tests would not find drugs in her system. She couldn’t claim we coerced her. Her own words damned her.
Royal stood. “I think we are done here.”
I leisurely got to my feet, stretched, flexed my shoulders, my gaze on Patty’s face. “Maybe you should pack a bag, Patty. You have time. I don’t know, but I suspect Her Majesty’s government will want a piece of you. I believe it’s called extradition.”
Royal and I walked away. At the door, I stopped to look back over my shoulder.
“Oh, and be sure you fly first class. All the way.”
Brief Brit-English Glossary:
Bubble and Squeak: Dating from medieval times, today’s Bubble and Squeak is usually made of leftover mashed potato and a green vegetable such as cabbage, mixed and fried till the outside is slightly bro
wn and crisp.
Cobblers: Nonsense.
Collywobbles: Butterflies in the stomach.
Don’t Half: If you “don’t half” like something, you like it a lot. Don’t half like, don’t half want, don’t half fancy, etc.
Faggots: A kind of large meatball traditionally made from herbs, pig’s heart, liver and fatty belly meat or bacon, sometimes also breadcrumbs.
Git: Mild profanity applied to the silly, incompetent, stupid, or annoying. Like many once abusive terms, this can be used affectionately.
Gor Blimey: An exclamation, or oath, from the medieval oath God Blind Me.
Hoity-Toity: Pretentiously self-important.
Keep Your Pecker Up: Keep your chin up; remain cheerful.
Lorry: Truck; semi.
Nobby Clarke: Various theories exist as to why Nobby was and still is in some parts of the country a nickname for men (not women) with the surname Clark or Clarke. One is that it derived from the rising young middle-class clerks of the 19th century who dressed to imitate the upper class “nobs.”
Skint: Broke; without money.
Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em: Before he became a star in The Phantom of the Opera, Michael Crawford was loved for his role in the BBC television series Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, in which he played a right idiot. The phrase is often applied to the dimwitted.
Spotted Dick: A steamed dessert with a cake-like consistency made of flour, milk, sugar, suet, lemon juice and raisins, customarily eaten with custard.
The Alberts: A man’s testicles.
Toad in the Hole: Sausages cooked in savory Yorkshire Pudding. Not a dessert.
Tommy: English soldier.
Salad Cream: A creamy yellow condiment similar to mayonnaise, mainly used as a salad dressing.
BOOKS BY LINDA WELCH
The Whisperings Series
Along Came a Demon
The Demon Hunters
Dead Demon Walking
Demon Demon Burning Bright
Short Story Collection
Femme Fatales
A Whisperings Mystery
Demon on a Distant Shore
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
