The Deadly Art of Deception

by Linda Crowder

  By the thickness of the crowd in the hall, I’d say the whole town had turned out for the event. There are times when I am thankful to be a tall woman, and one of them is when I’m swimming in a sea of revelers. I was able to spot Bent easily. He was standing on the far side of the hall, part of a cluster of men who were hugging the wall as though it would cave in without them. Mel was more difficult to find, but I eventually spotted her at a table in animated conversation with her midwife. Childbirth was not an appealing topic of conversation, and I didn’t feel like being the only woman at the wall, so I decided to join the line at the food table.

  It was a long and slow-moving line, but I was soon hip-deep in shoptalk with a few fellow merchants, comparing notes about the season. I was glad to learn that the record-breaking sales at the gallery had driven sales for souvenirs, T-shirts and native crafts as well. I felt a tug at my sleeve and turned to find Taylor, who was looking up at me with pleading eyes.

  “Cara, don’t turn away.” Her voice was urgent. “I need your help.”

  “Tay, I can’t talk to you right now.”

  “Cara, please!”

  I hesitated. I had reached the stacked plates at the end of the table, but my appetite fled as Taylor’s appearance was twisting my stomach in knots. The room suddenly felt hot, and a wave of nausea turned me away from the food. The weight of the crowd pressing against me made it difficult to breathe, and I knew I had to get out of there. I mumbled something to the friends I’d been talking with and pushed past Taylor, working my way toward the door. I didn’t have to look to know she would follow me.

  The blast of cold air at the door cleared my head. “How can you even ask me?”

  “Please, Cara! I’m in terrible danger. I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”

  I studied her face, searching for answers but finding none. She did look frightened, but a voice in my head was screaming that I couldn’t trust her. “I can’t tell when you’re lying, Tay. Maybe everything about you is a lie. Maybe it’s always been a lie with you.”

  “Cara, I swear. I’m telling you the truth. Every word.”

  I waivered. She sounded genuinely upset, but she’d sounded truthful before, and it had all been a lie. The nausea returned, and my head ached. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to help her like I’d always helped her, but there was a nagging feeling stealing over me that Taylor had only ever been my friend when she wanted something. Even if she was in trouble now, did I care?

  Bent saved me from answering, stepping up behind me and draping a protective arm around me. “Something wrong here?”

  My spine straightened. “I can’t trust you, Tay. I don’t know whether you’re telling the truth, and right now believing you could get me killed.”

  Taylor took a step back, but she didn’t walk away. “I guess I deserved that. I know I lied to you about Frank, and I’ve told you why.”

  “Which could also be a lie.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m not lying, Cara. I’m in real trouble. I don’t know what to do.”

  A chill ran though me as her words echoed the murderous ones of my dream. Maybe my subconscious knew her better than I did. “Dan’s inside, Tay. If you’re really in danger, tell him. I’m out.”

  I nodded to Bent, who gave my shoulders a squeeze and dropped his arm. I walked away, not knowing or even caring where I was going. I just wanted to get away from Taylor and was relieved when she didn’t follow.

  Mel must have noticed Bent leaving and came out behind him because she caught up to me before I’d gone even half the length of the block. “Cara, where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, slow down. Pregnant lady here.” She puffed out her cheeks and pushed her still-flat belly out, walking more like a penguin than a pregnant woman.

  Her humor broke the tension, and I laughed so hard I had to stop walking. “You don’t get to waddle for another four months.”

  “I’ll waddle whenever I want to, missy,” she said, trying to look hurt but not succeeding. As the laughter subsided, some of the anxiety returned, and Mel noticed the shift. She looked back toward the hall. “What did Taylor want?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve gotta get out of here. I’m not in the mood for a party anymore.”

  “We’ll both go.” Mel took my arm and walked back to where Bent stood. Taylor was gone, but Dan had come out of the hall and was standing with him.

  “What did Ms. Lennon want?” asked Dan.

  “Help.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. She said she was in trouble. I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of the story.”

  “Why not?” asked Dan. “Something going on between you and Ms. Lennon?”

  “Nothing’s going on, Dan. Nothing that involves me. She said she was in danger. I told her to go find you. That’s everything I know.”

  Dan frowned. “I’ll check it out. You two take Cara home.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone,” said Bent. “Let me drop the girls off, and I’ll go with you.”

  I felt my heart sink straight into my shoes. “If you really think there might be something wrong, Dan, I’m the one who should go. She might not talk to either of you. Bent, take Mel home. I’ll be there as soon as we’re done.”

  “Cara, don’t. Let Dan do his job.”

  “Mel, it’ll be okay. Tay said she was in danger. She didn’t say I was.”

  “You have your gun with you?” asked Bent.

  “Locked and loaded.” I patted my pocket, feeling reassured by the gun’s weight.

  “I don’t like it,” said Dan, “but I don’t have time to argue. Where would she go?”

  “The cabin?”

  Dan nodded, and we set off at a fast pace, heading out of town and leaving Mel and Bent to walk home without me. I was expecting every moment to overtake Taylor, but we didn’t see her. We walked the mile to the cabin in record time, but there was still no sign of her. While Dan banged on the door and shouted for her, a terrifying thought began to emerge from the fog in my brain. I staggered back from the cabin, stumbling my way out of the clearing and back to the road. I started to run and cursed the fact that I’d never taken up jogging as a hobby.

  I was running as fast as my couch-potato legs would take me while Dan jogged effortlessly beside me. “Where are you going?”

  My answer came in short bursts as my labored breathing would allow. “If Taylor really... wants help... she wouldn’t just give up... and go back to the cabin... She’d go home and... wait for me.”

  “The apartment?”

  I don’t know if the pain in my chest was from fear or fitness, but I lurched, unable to run any further, struggling simply to stay on my feet. I bent over, hands on my knees, gasping for breath. “She’d know... I’m not at the... apartment. She said it... in my dream... She knew I’d... be at Mel’s because... where else... would I go?”

  “What are you talking about?” Dan shouted, exasperation in his voice.

  I forced myself to take a few deep breaths before I answered him, feeling my heart retreat back into my chest at a more reassuring tempo. “It doesn’t matter,” I said as soon as I could speak. “Dan, we’ve got to get back there.”

  Wishing we’d taken Dan’s truck instead of blindly walking to the cabins, I took another deep breath and forced myself to start running again. A mile never felt so far in all my life, and I almost cried in relief as I reached the restaurant. I didn’t bother with the front door, which I knew would be locked. Instead, I rounded the building and hit the kitchen door at full gallop, twisting the knob and almost knocking myself out when the door didn’t budge.

  Dan caught me before I hit the ground and set me back onto my feet. I pounded on the door, screaming, “Mel! Mel, let me in!”

  I heard a lock slide on the other side of the door, and Mel’s voice sounded very distant. “Run, Cara! Run!”

  I sprang back from the door and ran smack into Dan, who was an unyieldin
g wall behind me. A few more locks slid and Taylor opened the door. “For heaven’s sake, Cara, where have you been? I thought you’d never get here.”

  She was standing in the doorway, holding Mel’s shotgun instead of a knife, but otherwise she was the image of the Taylor in my dream. She gestured for us to come into the kitchen, and I was shaking so hard Dan practically had to carry me. I heard the locks slide shut behind us, but as soon as we reached the kitchen, all I saw was Mel. She was sitting on a stool behind the worktable, her face streaked with tears. I managed to make it across the room on unsteady feet and threw my arms around her.

  She sobbed against my shoulder. “She shot him, Cara. She shot Bent.”

  “No! No, please God no!” I turned to look at Taylor, Mel still sobbing in my arms. “What kind of monster are you?”

  “I told you I needed help. If you’d just come with me when I asked, none of this would’ve happened.”

  I let go of Mel and took a step toward her. “Have you lost your mind? Dan! Do something!”

  Dan didn’t answer, but his eyes were focused on Taylor, who leveled the shotgun at him. “Take your gun out and put it on the table.” When Dan didn’t move, she racked a shell into the chamber. “Now.” Dan’s eyes narrowed, but he complied.

  “Why are you doing this, Tay? Oh my God, did you kill Johnny too?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody!”

  “You killed Bent,” Mel sobbed.

  “That was an accident!” Taylor snapped back at her. “How did I know Cara’s gun didn’t have the safety on?” She turned to me. “You should always put the safety on until you’re ready to use a gun. Johnny taught me that.”

  It was surreal. There we were standing in the kitchen, having a normal conversation as though Taylor hadn’t just shot my brother-in-law and wasn’t pointing a shotgun at us now. My head hurt. My hand went to my pocket, but it was empty. “How? When?”

  “At the hall. It was so crowded you didn’t even notice me taking it out of your pocket. When you said you wouldn’t help me, I thought I might need it.”

  “What? I had my gun with me after you left.” I looked at Mel. “Bent asked me about it. I felt for it in my pocket.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know,” sobbed Mel. “He’s gone, Cara. What am I gonna do?”

  I put my arm around her again. “Why would you need my gun?”

  “To protect myself.”

  “From who?”

  “From Dan. He killed Frank and he’s been trying to kill me!”

  “What?”

  “What are you talking about?” Dan and I spoke in unison.

  “Either you did it or Jack did, and you’ve been covering up for him.” She raised the shotgun again.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Why would either Dan or Jack want to kill Frank?”

  “How should I know? Look, all I know is that Frank and Jack went off together that night, and now Frank’s dead and Dan doesn’t seem to be doing much to find the killer.”

  “That makes Dan a murderer?” I asked. “Sheesh, Tay, it’s only been a few days. He doesn’t even have a positive ID on the body yet.”

  “He knows. Everybody knows. If Frank’s not dead, where is he?”

  I turned to Dan. “She has a point.”

  Dan glared at me. “You’re not helping.” He turned to Taylor. “Answer her question, Ms. Lennon. Why would Jack want Frank dead?”

  “Because he knew Frank was my husband.”

  Fortunately there was a stool in its customary place because I was so stunned I would have dropped right to the floor without it. “I thought you said the marriage license was a fake.”

  “It was real all right,” said Dan.

  “That means you were never legally married to Johnny.”

  “I divorced Frank before I ever met Johnny, Cara.”

  “You just said he was your husband.”

  “Ex-husband.”

  “Ask her where the divorce decree is,” Dan suggested.

  “You know I don’t know where it is! When Jack showed up with the marriage license, the court ordered me to produce the divorce decree, only I didn’t have it. I called Seattle, but the clerk said she couldn’t find any record of it.”

  “Didn’t you get a copy?” I asked.

  “How can she have a copy of something that doesn’t exist?” asked Dan.

  “It does exist!” Taylor insisted, then turned her attention back to me. “I never got a copy because right after I filed, I moved up here.”

  “Oh come on, Tay. They would have forwarded it to you.”

  “I never thought to send them my new address. I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “All very convenient,” said Dan.

  “Inconvenient, you mean,” answered Taylor. “If I’d just had the decree, I could have shown the court, and the estate would have settled months ago.”

  “What a load of—you’re not any more convincing with that shotgun than you were when you were telling that story to the judge. You expect us to believe that you got a divorce, but you didn’t wait to see it go final before you married somebody else? Nobody does that.”

  “No, Dan,” I sighed. “That’s exactly the kind of thing she would do. What was he doing here, Tay?”

  “Blackmail.”

  Dan slapped the table, and Taylor and I both jumped. Mel, in her agony, didn’t seem to hear us. “Bull!”

  “He showed up in Coho Bay, maybe a week or two before Johnny died. He told me he never signed the divorce papers and I was still legally married to him. He said unless I paid him off, he’d tell Johnny. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “How did he know you were here?”

  “You remember that magazine that did the story on promising young artists?”

  “The one that put the picture of you and Johnny on the cover,” I said.

  “That’s the one. Frank saw it. He said he dug into Johnny’s background to find out what kind of guy I’d married. When he found out about the money, he must’ve seen his chance to cash in. That’s all Frank ever wanted from me. He’d spent every dime I’d inherited from my parents, and now he was back to bleed me of whatever I could get from Johnny.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  “I was desperate, Cara. I loved Johnny. I didn’t want to risk losing him.”

  “You mean, you didn’t want to risk losing all that money,” said Dan.

  “Dan! Let her finish.”

  “Oh for crying out loud. You can’t believe a word she says. Why are we even listening to her?”

  “Are you afraid of what she has to say?” I asked.

  “I’m not afraid of anything.” Dan met my glare and raised me a grimace, but I held firm. He tossed up his arms in surrender. “Fine. Let her finish her story.”

  “That’s all there is,” said Taylor. “Before I could figure out what to do, Johnny died.”

  “Very convenient timing,” said Dan.

  “I agree,” said Taylor, surprising me. “I was terrified, thinking Frank had killed Johnny. I spoke to the coroner about it, but he assured me Johnny’s injuries were consistent with a bear attack.”

  I turned to Dan. “Is that what the coroner’s report said?”

  “For the most part.”

  “Why did you leave town, Tay?” I asked.

  “And wouldn’t Frank have followed you? Why’d he stay here?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was still here until I came back.”

  “That still leaves us with why you think Jack would want to kill Frank.”

  “When Jack contested the will, I begged an old family friend to represent me. I didn’t have any money to pay him until the estate settled. I told him everything, Cara. You can ask him.”

  “Couldn’t he track down the divorce decree?”

  Dan broke in. “You can’t track down what isn’t there.”

  Taylor ignored him. “He wasn’t able to find it in the database, and he didn’t get any further
than I had with the clerk in Seattle. He called me the morning before Frank disappeared to let me know he was going down there in person. He told me he’d search the records himself if that’s what it took. I told Jack that when he confronted me in front of your apartment.”

  My heart started to beat a little bit faster. “Was Frank there when you said that to Jack?”

  “No, he came up a little bit later.”

  “Dan, Frank would have heard that.”

  “If she’s telling the truth.”

  “Granted that’s a big if, but if she is, Frank would have heard that Taylor’s attorney was going to Seattle to look for the divorce decree. Assuming the decree does exist, and the lawyer finds it, that would be game over for Frank. He had to get Jack to withdraw his objection to the will. You and I both know that wasn’t gonna happen.”

  “It’s a mighty skinny limb you’ve worked yourself out on, Cara.”

  “Maybe, but it would explain a lot of things.”

  Dan studied Taylor, who’d been looking back and forth between us as we talked, her brows knotted in bewilderment. “Let’s cut to the chase. Frank’s not dead. Jack is.”

  “What?” Taylor’s face paled, and even Mel was shaken out of her grief enough to stare open-mouthed at Dan.

  “I’ll tell you what I think happened,” said Dan. “I think you and Frank are still married. If he left you when your money ran out, there’s no record you ever filed for divorce. I think you came crying to Cara because you were broke and you knew she’d take you in. You wheedled your way into marrying Johnny when you found out he was rich, and you figured nobody’d ever know you were still married to Frank.”

  “I told you I didn’t know about the money until after we were married.”

  “You’ve told me lots of things, and most of them are lies. I’ll tell you something else. I don’t think you ever stopped loving Frank. Whenever you found out about the money, you told him about it because you knew he’d come running to get a piece of it.”

  “She was married to Johnny for two years before Frank even showed up,” I said. “He didn’t exactly come running.”