Zolar’s already pale countenance went ashen as he thought of his next move. The man with the suitcase, however, knew precisely what to do. Reaching for the inside of his suit jacket, he pulled a gun from his holster and pointed it directly at Stella.
Before Stella could even react, she felt something push at her back, sending her facedown onto the hard carriage house floor. She exhaled sharply as her chin made contact with the old wood boards, causing her to bite her tongue – hard.
Dazed from the fall and her mouth full of blood, Stella lay on the ground several moments before glancing up to see Carlson standing over her, the gun in his hand aimed at the unknown foreign contact. He was soon joined by three other men in street clothes. All three were armed.
“Listen, Park,” Carlson addressed the man in the pinstriped suit. “We’ve already got you on selling potential military designs to an enemy of the United States, but if you tell us who hired you, we might be able to work out a deal. You start shooting, you’re a dead man.”
Stella watched as Park slowly dropped the gun and held his hands in the air. As sirens sounded in the distance, the three armed men rushed in and apprehended both Park and Zolar, pinning their hands behind their backs.
Carlson reached down and helped Stella up from the floor. “I’m sorry I had to do that, Mrs. Buckley,” he apologized.
“I’m glad you did,” Nick thanked him. “If anything had happened to you –” he embraced Stella tightly.
“I’m fine,” she assured. “I’m not going anywhere any time soon. Except perhaps to a dentist.”
The other Creators appeared in the doorway and watched in silence as Zolar and Park were led out of the barn.
“Good work,” Carlson congratulated Stella.
“Thanks, but don’t congratulate me yet,” she replied.
“Oh? Why not?” he laughed. “Modest, are you?”
“No, not modest. Tell me, do you happen to have another pair of handcuffs on you?”
“I do. Why?”
“Because you’re going to need them. Isn’t that right,” Stella’s eyes turned to the row of Creators standing near the door, “Ms. McArdle?”
Gasps and cries filled the air as Meagan took a step back. “Me? I didn’t do anything. I’ve just lost my dear Philip –” she broke into tears.
“Save the tears for a jury,” Stella advised. “You and Zolar were in it together. You murdered Philip because he learned of Zolar’s plan to sell HALLE. Arthur Bauersfeld, unfortunately, got in the way.”
“This is ridiculous,” she sobbed. “Why do you hate me so?”
“It was you who knew the pinpad code to Philip’s room. It was you who planted the magnetic blanket under his mattress and then poured him the drugged Akvavit to produce a heart attack. It was you who attacked Mark Rousseau on the path to the house. And it was you who asked me to get involved in the case in an effort to steer the investigation to your advantage. You thought you had everyone wrapped around your little finger, didn’t you?”
Meagan stopped crying and glared at Stella with eyes full of hate. She looked like a completely different woman than the one who had graciously welcomed them to Vue Colline. “Bitch! I would have gotten away with it all too if he hadn’t been so sloppy.”
“That’s enough.” Carlson slapped handcuffs on Meagan and advised her of her rights. As he led her out of the carriage house, he glanced over his shoulder at Stella, “Now can I say it?”
She nodded.
“Nice job, Mrs. Buckley.”
“Thank you, very much… he who isn’t Carlson,” she added with an impish grin.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When the dust had settled from the day’s events and the police and Creators and local Cavalcade attendees had all gone home, the remaining Creators assembled in the dining room of Vue Colline for drinks and take-out pizza.
“There are moments when even a chef cannot think about cooking,” a mournful Durand explained as he opened the box of pizza with pepperoni and helped himself to a slice.
Aurora placed a commiserating hand on the chef’s arm and gave it a consoling squeeze.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Ms. B. Ology announced as she poured herself a glass of chardonnay.
“One thing?” Dan joked from his place at the table.
“What put you on to Meagan in the first place?” B. Ology continued. “Was it the fact that she wouldn’t wear her engagement ring?”
“I always thought that was strano. Now I know that it is,” Aurora declared.
With a nod in Aurora’s direction, Stella sipped her glass of pinot noir and sat in what had become her usual spot. “I agree, Aurora, but what really clinched it for me was the morning Philip’s body was discovered. The police had just finished questioning Meagan and everyone had gone to prepare for the Cavalcade. Upon learning that Philip had seen his doctor just days before his death, I suggested to Meagan that she call said doctor and discuss what had happened. She flat out refused. Later on, I learned that Philip had a pacemaker, however, at no time in our conversations did Meagan mention it.”
“Maybe Meagan didn’t know,” B. Ology suggested.
“I thought that too, at first, but then I remembered the afternoon of the preview. Meagan was concerned that Philip had demonstrated the robotic suit without finding an alternative power supply.”
“Because of the potential of a magnetic field,” Ms. B. exclaimed.
“Okay, back up, will you?” Oona urged from the buffet table, where Chef Durand served her a slice of veggie pizza. “Start from the beginning, please, because I feel like I changed TV channels and I’m trying to watch a movie in the middle. A movie with subtitles.”
Nick sat down beside Stella and handed her a slice of the veggie pie. “Okay, okay,” she agreed. “I don’t have concrete evidence, but I believe Meagan entered her relationship with Philip Morehouse in search of financial security. Tell me, Chef, if you don’t mind sharing. Did Meagan seem interested in you romantically when you first met?”
Durand’s face colored slightly. “I am not the Don Juan, you know, but oui, she seemed amenable to the idea.”
“And then Philip came on the scene. Did her attitude change at all?”
“No, not until –” Durand sat down at the table, his mouth agape. “Sacre! Her attitude did not change until the closing of my restaurant.”
“And thus, I suspect, was the way of Meagan McArdle,” Stella noted. “She was a charming, intelligent woman who knew how to use her good looks and personality to either use people, as she did Philip and Zolar and, had he not lost his restaurant, Chef Durand. Or to put them in a position where they looked like the guilty party in this mystery, as she did to Carlson, Oona, and Aurora.”
Stella took a bite of pizza before continuing the story. “Meagan also knew that Philip was competitive. The more attention she paid to Chef Durand, the more appealing she became to Philip Morehouse.”
Dan nodded his head and chewed his pizza in somber silence.
“Unfortunately, what she did not know is that most of Philip’s money was tied up in the Foundation and, more recently, the HALLE project. However, she soon discovered just how valuable HALLE could be to the medical community, so she started talking to Kenneth Zolar. Ms. B.,” Stella addressed, “you told me that Kenneth Zolar needed a woman as an anchor in his life, did you not?”
“It’s true. He did. He was brilliant but his relationship with his mother had left him fragile.”
“Meagan capitalized upon this fragility. When I interviewed Zolar, Meagan was the only person here whom he spoke about with any sort of affection. Of course, when he caught himself, he backtracked and implied that Meagan was stupid, but the damage had already been done.”
“So that was why Ken was reluctant to have a relationship with me,” B. Ology lamented. “He was already in a relationship with Meagan.”
“Be grateful he didn’t start anything with you, eh?” Durand took the seat across the ta
ble from her.
“I’m not sure if Meagan and Zolar’s relationship was of a romantic nature or not,” Stella conceded. “All I do know is that they conspired to sell HALLE and profit from the sale.”
“But the old man would never have allowed that to happen,” Rousseau declared.
“I agree. And, in the end, Zolar and Meagan would have eventually killed your step-father to prevent him from stopping their plan. For the time being, however, they would do their best to transact the deal without Philip finding out about it. The plan worked for a while, but something occurred that forced them to take action. Philip sensed something wasn’t quite right and hired an investigator to look into the matter. The results of that investigation showed that Kenneth Zolar was going to sell their robotic suit to the North Koreans.”
“Not the Chinese?” Aurora asked.
“No, the Koreans. Remember that first night at dinner when Kenneth spilled his glass of wine? Does anyone happen to recall the topic of conversation at the time?” Stella took a sip of pinot noir and awaited a response.
“Oh yeah!” Ms. B. Ology nearly shouted. “That live octopus dish popular in Korean restaurants. No wonder he was so jittery.”
Stella nodded. “Morehouse had gotten the report on Zolar just as the Cavalcade was about to commence. It was the pages of that report that Arthur Bauersfeld spotted in Philip’s office. Arthur misinterpreted them as proof of Morehouse’s treason, but in reality, they implicated Kenneth Zolar.”
“I told you Arthur wasn’t crazy,” Oona emphasized.
“Indeed, he wasn’t. He was simply a victim of a tremendous misunderstanding,” Stella agreed. “After receiving the report on Zolar, Philip’s next move was a tricky one. As we all know, the show must go on, so he sat on the results and decided to wait until after the Cavalcade and his presentations to the medical community to bring Zolar to justice. In the meantime, in true Morehouse fashion, he decides to have a little fun at Zolar’s expense by switching his room with Dan’s.”
“So the rooms were switched so that Zolar got the Asian themed bedroom. Thank goodness it wasn’t the other way around,” Dan sighed. “Phil knew I love martial arts and that’s why he had the room decorated for me. When I was switched at the last minute, I thought Phil was angry with me.”
“No, it was a thumb to the nose meant to make Kenneth Zolar squirm,” Stella explained. “Unfortunately, it worked too well. It was clear that Philip was on to the North Korea plan, so it was decided he had to go – immediately. Ms. B., do you recall how Kenneth Zolar’s father died?”
She looked up from her pizza. “Um, heart attack, I think.”
“That’s right. Cardiac arrest due to a failed pacemaker.”
“Oh my –” B. Ology gasped. “Do you think Ken…?”
Stella shrugged. “That’s a police matter now. Suffice to say that Kenneth Zolar knew just enough about pulmonary devices to be dangerous. And Meagan knew Philip’s health history. They worked together to make Philip’s death seem like an ordinary heart attack, by using magnets.”
Oona’s jaw dropped. “Arthur’s magnetic blanket.”
“Meagan knew that you and Arthur wouldn’t be at dinner Friday evening; you had, most likely, RSVP’d for the event. She also knew, as does everyone here, that you and Arthur had a tradition of going out for falafels or sandwiches prior to the Cavalcade. So, while you and Arthur are out having supper, Zolar pops into your tent, steals the magnetic blanket, and slashes the roof.”
“But why vandalize the yurt?” Oona asked.
“To keep you and Arthur from going back that night and discovering the blanket was gone. It was perfect. Meagan had the specs of the yome on file with the Foundation, so she could show Zolar where and how to slash so as the damage would be serious, but temporary. Heck, even the rain cooperated – the only problem is Arthur didn’t.”
Oona Bauersfeld broke into gentle sobs. Her fellow Creators took turns offering expressions of comfort and condolence.
“Is it okay for me to continue?” Stella asked.
“Yes, please,” Oona answered. “I want to know what happened to my husband.”
“Zolar brought the magnetic blanket back to Vue Colline,” Stella started. “Where Meagan, having access to Philip’s room, placed it under Morehouse’s mattress and then came down for dinner, the picture of innocence. As we know, Zolar excused himself from the dining room early – probably to prepare for the night’s activities. Oona, as expected, comes to the house seeking shelter, but she’s alone – no Arthur, which must have put Meagan in a tailspin. Still, Meagan handles it the best she can. She suggested we go out and convince Arthur to join us. Oona, understanding her husband’s stubbornness, shoots down the idea, leaving Meagan to carry out the rest of the plan by pouring Philip his beloved Akvavit, which, I maintain, was drugged.”
“Drugged?” Durand repeated.
“Disarming Philip’s defibrillator wasn’t enough; to make certain Philip was dead before the weekend was out, a heart attack needed to be induced. Demerol and other narcotic drugs can cause cardiac arrest in patients with a weak heart, which described Philip without his pacemaker. We’ll find out when the police run their final blood tests, but I’m willing to wager that Meagan put the drug in the only beverage here that was consumed by Philip and Philip alone. After that, Meagan then accompanies Oona to her room, using the opportunity to alert Zolar to Arthur’s presence within the tent.
“For Zolar, it was no big deal. He still had in his possession Carlson’s knife, which he had used to slash the yurt earlier in the day. Although the second murder is unexpected and a derailment of the original plan, Zolar realizes that using the knife for that murder would only serve to move suspicion away from him and Meagan and also create confusion as to which man was the intended victim.”
“It worked,” Dan stated as he poured himself another drink.
“Meagan tucks Philip into bed herself,” Stella continued, “possibly even using her feminine wiles to do so, and then heads off to sleep in the White Room under the pretense that Morehouse was working late. She announces to everyone that if they need anything, to knock on her door. Why does she do that? For an alibi. Later in the night, when everyone is asleep, she returns to Philip’s room – remember, she had the code to his door and wouldn’t be deemed suspicious if seen entering or exiting – to ensure Philip is dead. He is, so she removes the magnetic blanket from beneath the mattress and delivers it to Zolar, making two small mistakes along the way. The first is the bottle of Tambocor on Philip’s bedside table, no doubt taken by Philip as he felt his heart slowing. Meagan either didn’t notice it or she didn’t think it important at the time, but its presence posed a serious question: why would a man with a functioning pacemaker need to take a heart regulating medication like Tambocor?”
“And the second mistake?” Rousseau prompted.
“Copurrnicus,” Stella averred. “According to Mr. Tuttle, Philip’s devoted cat slept with his owner every night until he fed him breakfast at seven a.m. Due to the Cavalcade, that breakfast would have been rescheduled for six thirty, but I believe you said you saw Copurrnicus in the kitchen when, Mr. Rousseau?”
“Oh, about two or two thirty in the morning. He was also unusually affectionate,” he added.
“He probably sensed that something was wrong with his owner and, unbeknownst to Meagan, escaped Morehouse’s quarters while the door was open. It sounds trivial, I know, but it was the presence of Copurrnicus that proved that Morehouse was murdered first – Arthur’s death was placed between three and five o’clock – and was, indeed, the intended victim.
“As Meagan went back to her room and Copurrnicus brushed against Ms. B. Ology’s bedroom door, Zolar enacted the second part of the plan. Using the emergency ladder from the third floor, he entered the bathroom down the hall, locked the door, opened the window, placed the ladder, and, with the blanket and knife strapped to his back, made his way to the grounds. This was important, you see, because he couldn’
t take the chance that someone would see or hear him leaving via the staircase. The only problem is someone did see him – Mark Rousseau – only, at the time Mr. Rousseau was uncertain precisely what it was that he was seeing.”
“Still got my head bashed in because of it,” he joked.
“By Meagan by the way. She did the bashing; Zolar was in the dining room at the time you got hit,” Stella pointed out. “You can’t be in two places at the same time.”
“Um, but that’s what you’re suggesting by stating that Ken was the killer. Remember, he was typing most the night. I distinctly heard it when I was outside his door,” B. ology argued.
“Ah yes, Dan helped me out with that one,” Stella confessed.
“Zolar played a recorded track on his computer – one he could operate remotely. I use pre-recorded tracks during my shows. It’s fairly common practice actually.”
The familiar form of Chip Carlson, dressed in modern street clothes, appeared in the dining room doorway. “Hey, everyone. Security let me in. Is it okay if I join you all?”
Carlson received a warm greeting from everyone in the room except Ms. B. Ology, who flushed and avoided making eye contact.
“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” Nick shook Carlson’s hand. Stella, grateful to Carlson for saving her life, bestowed him with a giant bear hug. And, Chef Durand, true to form, presented him with a glass of wine and a slice of pepperoni pizza.
“Monsieur Carlson,” the chef addressed as he presented him with his meal. “But, wait, I cannot call you that can I? What is your real name?”
“Marsh. Special Agent James Marsh with the FBI. Philip Morehouse’s investigator had evidence of Kenneth Zolar’s contact with North Korea so he alerted our department. Seeing an opportunity to infiltrate the Cavalcade from the inside, I was called upon to go undercover as Chip Carlson, the reclusive designer whom none of you had ever seen. I feel badly having lied to everyone, and I wish I could have prevented the deaths of Mr. Morehouse and Mr. Bauersfeld, but at least I can report that Zolar and McArdle are both going to be locked up for a very long time.”
Short-Circuited in Charlotte: A Pret' Near Perfect Mystery Page 27
