by Sara Rosett
Alex pulled out his cell phone, dialing as he walked. He tilted the phone away from his face and spoke to me as he listened to it ring. “But why today?”
“They all—Eve, Sherry, and the gardener—all have an alibi. I heard Eve tell Sherry to make sure she stayed at the open house until after two. ‘It will be over by then’ is what she said. I didn’t realize what it could mean or make the connection until you told me that it was Sherry speaking to the gardener. That was when everything matched up and made sense in an awful way.”
Alex closed his eyes briefly, then snapped them open as he spoke into the phone, requesting an ambulance at Coventry House.
“What do you think she’s done?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. I suppose the easiest thing would be to put an overdose of sleeping pills in his food. Then she could go home, clean up the food, and arrange everything so that it looked as if he decided to do it himself. She did mention to Beatrice that he was feeling down and gloomy today, but that may be a cover for later. We only have her word that he’s depressed. She could be lying.”
We arrived at the hedge that enclosed Coventry House’s garden and followed it around to the gate under the arch of shrubbery. The gate wasn’t locked, and we sprinted across the lawn with Slink galloping ahead of us, her long legs splaying then flexing, barely seeming to touch the grass. Alex reached the back door to the kitchen first and stepped back after twisting the doorknob. “Locked.”
“The terrace?” I asked, already moving in that direction. “Maybe one of the French doors…”
Alex nodded and whistled for Slink, who had paused, sides heaving as Alex tried the door. We dodged through the garden. As we trotted up the shallow steps to the terrace, relief washed over me. Two of the long French doors stood open. I stepped over the threshold and glanced around the empty drawing room. A tray of food, the plates and bowls smeared with crumbs and streaks of food, sat on a table near Mr. Wallings’ camelback chair.
“Bedrooms,” Alex said, and I nodded.
“Eve said he naps every day after lunch.” We moved through the hall, our feet and Slink’s claws clattering across the floor. I took the stairs two at a time, Slink easily loping up the steps between us. At the top, Alex turned left. “Since he didn’t show us these bedrooms during his tour, this is probably where his and Eve’s rooms are.” We barely checked our pace at the first door, which was open, because we could see the room was empty.
The next door was wide open. We could both see a figure lying completely still on the four-poster bed. Some of the interior shutters had been closed, blocking off the daylight, but pale light filtered into the room from a few partially open shutters on the other side of the room.
Breathing hard from all the running and the sprint up the stairs, I took a few steps into the room. The figure in the bed was Mr. Wallings. I could tell by the patch of snowy white hair on the pillow. He was turned away from me, toward the dark side of the room. I took a few steps around the end of the bed until his face came into view. I sucked in my breath. “He’s pale—so pale, and his lips are blue,” I whispered. Even in the dim room, his skin looked wrong. “We’re too late.” I turned back to Alex, then started.
Eve stood behind Alex with an antique shotgun tucked into her shoulder, her face stormy. Alex saw the change in my expression and spun around.
“No, don’t move,” Eve said, as the end of the gun quivered back and forth between us. A foot or two of space separated us. I was around the edge of the bed while Alex had stopped at the foot of the bed. Slink, sensing the change in atmosphere, whined and moved around the room.
“Get your dog under control,” Eve snapped.
Alex patted his leg, and Slink trotted in a circle around Eve, her long leash trailing along the ground behind her. Alex put his hand on Slink’s back as she settled next to his leg. Her whine softened. Eve motioned with the gun, and both Alex and I tensed. “Closer. Get closer,” she commanded.
I inched forward, afraid to make any sudden movements. Alex must have felt the same way because he took a slow step to the side, which brought us within inches of each other. Alex had his hand on Slink’s collar, and she shadowed his movements.
“Good. At least you can follow directions.” Eve’s face was flushed, and there was a brightness in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before.
“Ms. Wallings—” Alex began, his tone soothing.
“Shut up. You are a troublemaker. Always have been, right from the start. Interfering and mucking up everything.” She was visibly trembling—with rage, I realized. The barrel of the gun bobbed and twitched. Her gaze fastened on me. “And you Hollywood people, especially that Kevin Dunn, making it worse with his plans and ideas, stirring up Uncle Edwin. I knew it when I saw you running out the exit at Parkview Hall today. I heard you asking for Beatrice, and I remembered you hovering behind Sherry, eavesdropping. I knew you’d overheard enough to work out what had happened. I could see it on your face.” She drew in a deep breath and blew it out. The barrel steadied. “But I can still fix it, as I always do. The discovery of my dear uncle’s death will have to be delayed until you are…removed.”
“You can’t seriously think that you can, well…get rid of us?” Alex said in a calm tone. “Without anyone finding out? That’s unbelievable.”
“I’m a resourceful person, Mr. Norcutt. No one seems to understand that—or how hard I work. Do you know how difficult it is to run a house of this size single-handedly, seeing to the constant repairs, not to mention maintaining the grounds and gardens as well as dealing with a querulous old man? Is there any gratitude? Any appreciation? No. Not one word of thanks. And after giving up my life, my friends to care for him. His own children wouldn’t do that for him. I’m the one who dropped everything to be here with him. One would think the least he could do would be to say a word of thanks every once in a while.”
“But that doesn’t justify killing him,” I said.
She continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “He wasn’t even going to pay me for all my hard work, not anything significant. I asked him, one day right before he drifted off for his nap. I asked him what he planned to do for me. If he intended to make a provision for me. After all, I’ve done more than his children. It’s only right that he include me in his will. The amount he named was a pittance.” She raised her chin. “So, I took steps to ensure I get what I’m due. It’s only fair.”
“It’s all about the money?” I asked.
“Of course it’s about money,” Eve said derisively. “Everything comes down to money in the end, doesn’t it? So easy to say money isn’t important, but you’ll notice the people saying money doesn’t matter always seem to have plenty of it. And I deserve to have plenty of it myself.” Her hands gripping the gun tightened. “You two are only a little glitch, which can be corrected. Apparently, it’s extremely difficult to find a buried body. There was a tremendously informative special on the telly about a serial killer. Did you know, he buried six bodies, six, and they weren’t discovered until he led the police to them.”
“We’ve called for an ambulance,” Alex said in the same calm tone he’d used earlier. I blinked and looked away from her pink cheeks and glittery eyes, feeling a bit like a cobra that had just broken free of the snake charmer’s gaze. I’d never seen anyone so convinced, so sure of herself. It was fascinating in a bizarre way.
“I will send it away. I’ll explain the call was a mistake, a misunderstanding.”
“But that will look odd,” I said, “Later, when you call to report that your uncle has died. The fact that you turned away an ambulance shortly before he died will raise questions. It would be better to let them in, talk to them now. You can explain everything. I’m sure they’ll understand.” I tried to put as much persuasion into my tone as possible, but even to me, my words sounded unconvincing.
As I spoke, I glanced around the room for something that we could use to incapacitate her, but we were isolated in the center of the room with nothing at hand. My p
ockets were empty, except my cell phone, and short of throwing it at her, I didn’t see how I could use it as a weapon. And even if I did throw it at her, she’d probably dodge it, then fire the gun.
“I doubt that,” Eve said. I snuck a glance out of the corner of my eye at Alex. If we could charge her…the distance wasn’t too large, only a few feet, but we’d have to move together, and there was the chance that she’d get a shot off before we could knock the barrel out of the way. I thought of what a shot at such close range could do to a person, and discarded that idea. I leaned forward a centimeter to look at Slink, but she was standing obediently at Alex’s side. She didn’t look like the type of dog that would have been trained to charge and attack. My mind scrolled through those thoughts in seconds, considering, then discarding options, feeling more and more desperate as I went down the list.
Then I noticed Slink’s leash, which had trailed along on the floor as she milled about nervously before Alex called her to his side. One portion of the leash had fallen so that it curved around, making a complete circle. Eve’s right foot was planted in the dead center of it.
The loop that made the handle of the leash was near my foot. I shifted my weight and inched my foot toward the loop.
Alex had noticed my movement, and shot me a quick glance while Eve looked at her watch. I raised my eyebrows and stared at the loop of the leash positioned around Eve’s foot.
“Such a shame for you that the nearest ambulance is in Upper Benning,” Eve said. “Takes quite a while to get here. In fact, my assistants may arrive before it does. I’ll have two people to help me, one of them a strong young man.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex run his right hand along Slink’s collar and unhook the leash. He flexed his hand, looping the leash so that it ran around the back of his hand and into his palm, giving him a tight grip on it. “How do you know they’ll help you?” I asked, trying to hold her gaze so she wouldn’t look down. “Your young man felt guilty witnessing a will. He might balk at moving bodies.” I shifted my foot as imperceptibly as I could, working my toe into the loop of the handle.
“Money, Ms. Sharp,” Eve said. “It is quite a motivator.”
We were close enough that I could touch the back of Alex’s hand with mine. He caught my hand in his and squeezed it once, firmly, then again. He was counting down for us, I realized and for a crazy moment, I wondered if we were going on three or a beat after three. But then a second before he squeezed my hand again a rustling sound came from behind me, and Eve gave a startled gasp.
“This has gone on long enough, Evie.” Even with my back turned, I recognized Mr. Wallings’ voice.
Eve shifted the gun so that it pointed between our shoulders.
Alex squeezed my hand, and I jerked my foot backward as hard as I could. The leash bit into the arch of my foot.
Several things happened at almost exactly the same moment. Eve’s leg jumped forward, throwing her off balance. She fell in a heap. The bathroom door, which was positioned in the far corner of the darker side of the room and had been closed, banged open, and a police officer ran into the room.
Several other officers flooded into the room from the hall. Inspector Quimby was at the front of the pack. He darted forward and plucked the gun out of Eve’s hand as the officer who’d come running out of the bathroom restrained her. I was crouching, low to the ground. I didn’t remember ducking, but I must have done it instinctively. I decided it was probably the best place for me to be since my legs were suddenly unsteady. I leaned back against the footboard of the bed. Quimby supervised the exit of Eve, who was trembling, too, but she was shaking with outrage, saying how dare the police get involved in a private family matter. She demanded they leave at once.
Quimby handed off the gun to another officer, then stood with his hands on his hips, watching as Eve was escorted down the hall.
I looked at Alex, who stood over me, his hands braced on his knees. Slink stood beside him, her long tail whipping back and forth, her mouth open in a doggie grin, her ears perked up. Despite the chaos going on around her, she sensed the danger was over.
Mr. Wallings moved slowly toward us, his quivery hand braced on the bed. “Are you all right, sir?” Alex asked him.
“I’m fine, just fine, now that I know the truth.” His face was a ghostly white and his lips were blue-tinged, but now that he was in the light I could see the changes were due to powder and some sort of colored lip balm. “If you’d be so good as to hand me my cane,” he asked, and Alex picked it up from where it had been hooked over the footboard. “I’ll wash and rejoin you.” He headed for the bathroom at his measured pace.
“Well, that turned out better than I expected it would,” I said. Slink came over and licked my chin.
“Yes, would have been nice to know the house was apparently crawling with coppers.” Alex sent a dark look at Quimby as he joined us.
“If I’d known you were crashing—literally—our little party, I would have warned you.” Quimby looked around at the police officers moving in and out of the room and then to me on the floor. “Rest here if you need to. Join me in the drawing room when you feel up to it.”
I patted Slink’s neck. “I think my legs will hold me up now.”
Alex and Quimby reached out to help me up. I gave Slink a final pat, then extended a hand to each man and let them hoist me up.
Chapter Twenty
Quimby parted from Alex and me on the stairs, saying he’d be with us in a moment. We went into the drawing room and took seats, avoiding the man-eating couch. Slink settled herself on the carpet near Alex’s feet with a sigh. Alex had refastened her leash. He draped it over the arm of his chair. Before we had time to speak, Mr. Wallings tottered in, still using his cane. He moved across the room and took a seat in his camelback chair. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and patted his face and neck. “Feels good to get that powder off my face,” he said, and I noticed his collar was damp. “I don’t know how you women stand the stuff.”
“So you knew about Eve?” I said, feeling like I was the last one to know about a surprise party.
“A few weeks ago, I began to suspect that Evie was skimming money from my accounts. I had to gather proof and get my strength up before I confronted her. Then you handed me that stack of paper with my new ‘will,’ and I knew the situation was much more serious than I’d realized.” He paused, his gaze on the carpet. “I don’t understand it. I took her in when she didn’t have a job, gave her a place to live. She expected me to give her a portion of my estate—an extremely large portion. But it should go to my children. I didn’t expect her to run the place, but,” he sighed and shook his head, “she took on more and more, made decisions without consulting me—like getting rid of Celia. There are weeks that are a blur.”
“Was she medicating you then?”
“Worked that out, did you? I didn’t realize it at that point. Didn’t grasp what was going on until I had a little bout with a stomach virus. Couldn’t eat a thing for several days, but darned if I didn’t feel more clear headed than I had in weeks. From that moment on, I didn’t eat a thing she brought me. I’ve been faking my afternoon lie down as well.” He leaned over and opened the lowest drawer in a table beside him, revealing a rainbow of brightly colored energy bars. “These have been in the pantry since my young nephews came to visit last year. Lucky for me they have a shelf life of several decades. I asked Beatrice to bring me a meal occasionally, and I’ve been fine. I wish I’d been able to stop Beatrice from eating that custard the other day, but I couldn’t do that without giving away to Evie that I knew what was going on. I was worried, but Beatrice only ate a few bites, and I knew you were going directly back to Parkview Hall.”
I suppressed a shiver. “How fortunate for us that Parkview Hall isn’t far. If the drive had been longer…” I paused, not wanting to think about what could have happened.
“If you were going anywhere else, I would have made sure Beatrice didn’t drive. I had no idea th
e effects of the drug on her would be so sudden.”
I sat up straight. “Better not to dwell on that, I suppose. What did you do with the food they served you?”
“Said my stomach was still upset. Mostly pushed it around on my plate.”
I looked at the tray of plates and bowls with only smears of food on them. “Then, you didn’t eat this?”
“Oh, no. That’s the fake tray. Quimby’s men sealed up the real one and took it off to test it.”
“So this was just to fool Eve into thinking that you’d eaten it.”
Quimby entered, carrying a tray with tea. He placed it on the table near Mr. Wallings. “The plan was to let Eve wash up the ‘incriminating’ dishes, which she would believe contained traces of the sleeping pills, and then let her stage the scene for the discovery of what she intended to be construed as Mr. Wallings’ suicide. That way, we could prevent her from claiming the whole thing was simply an accident.” He considered the couch for a moment, then dragged a straight back chair over from a corner of the room, took a seat, and began pouring out tea and handing around cups. As he handed me a teacup and saucer he said, “I didn’t get your messages until just now. I had my phone turned off. Couldn’t have it ringing unexpectedly while I was hiding in the pantry.”
“I see. Sorry for barging in.”
Quimby opened his mouth to say something, but Mr. Wallings said, “Quite all right, my dear. Knowing that a pair of young people came to rescue me goes a long way in restoring my faith in human nature.”
Quimby didn’t look as if he agreed with the sentiment, but took a sip of his tea instead of speaking.
Alex put his cup in his saucer and leaned forward. “How did you expect to fool Eve? Mr. Wallings wasn’t even drugged. He was only pretending to be asleep. If she’d checked his pulse, wouldn’t the game be up?”
“He was supposed to be lightly drugged, but apparently, Mr. Wallings has built up some resistance to the medicine. Fortunately, we enlisted help, Jacob MacNamerra.” Quimby pointed his teacup in the direction of the French windows where a police officer was escorting Sherry away from the young man, who stood alone, watching her go with a look of disgust on his face.
