Scent to Kill: A Natural Remedies Mystery (Natural Remedies Mysteries)

by Chrystle Fiedler

  I thought about the text messages I’d seen on her phone: Nothing same since Roger died. I think C knows. . . . Also think C may have killed R or hired someone to do it! Actually, they made perfect sense, I realized, if Amanda had been Roger’s last mistress and now believed that Carly had found out about the affair and had planned Roger’s murder—and had gotten Simon to carry it out.

  I headed back to the cottage Saturday afternoon because I had clients to see. Carly was leaving Allie’s room when I got there. I asked her how Tom was doing.

  “Pretty good, considering. I told him he should come in for a massage. It would do him good. Allie has magic fingers.”

  Allie came out of her treatment room. “I heard that.” She smiled. “I’m glad you think so. Take it easy the rest of the day, okay?”

  Carly nodded. “It’s Saturday already,” she said softly. “Tomorrow will be a week since Roger died.”

  I followed Allie back into her room, where she began to strip the linens off her treatment table. “I hate to ask,” I said, “but did she say anything else about Roger’s murder?”

  Allie started to make up the treatment table with fresh sheets. “I feel guilty repeating what a client has told me in confidence. But I know why you are asking.”

  “I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to, but Simon could go to jail for the rest of his life.”

  “Got it.” Allie picked up a fresh pillowcase and put it on a pillow. “Carly was very upset about the attack on Tom, and, of course, she’s worried about Simon. She’s convinced that he didn’t kill Roger.”

  “Of course. He is her boyfriend, after all.”

  “She also said that if she’d had the guts, she would have killed Roger herself a long time ago. He was a serial philanderer.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that he cheated on his first wife and Carly.”

  “Repeatedly, from what Carly said. It was one woman after another.”

  “So, why did she stay with him?”

  “She loved him in spite of his wicked ways. She kept hoping that he would change. They even went to marriage counseling; that is, when Roger bothered to show up. On the night of her birthday in April, he left the party with someone else. She filed for divorce the next day.”

  “It must have been weird for them to work together on this project.”

  “It was, especially since they just separated a few months ago. But she said that being with Simon really helped. I think that took the edge off her pain.”

  Carly had as good a motive to murder Roger as anyone else—a woman scorned, and all that. And if she did kill him, it was unlikely that she acted alone. She was petite and couldn’t have gotten Roger’s body to the beach without help. It was the same problem that James would have encountered if he killed Roger. Was Amanda right? Had Carly murdered Roger with Simon’s help—or hired someone else to do it?

  I still couldn’t believe Simon was involved, partly because he was too decent to ever do something that cruel. But also because Simon was kind of a wimp. The sight of blood made him feel faint; he didn’t have the hard-core personality of a killer. Besides, why would Carly bother killing Roger now that she had filed for divorce and was happy with Simon? Didn’t that sort of dilute the need for a crime of passion?

  I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon seeing clients. I helped one of the cameramen with his tinnitus, an associate producer with hives, and the film editor who had carpal tunnel syndrome.

  After I was done, I called Jackson to check in and told him about my run-in with Amanda. He told me to steer clear of her and that we were still on for a seven o’clock excursion into the Bixby mansion.

  Since it was only five o’clock, I joined Nick’s hatha yoga class. While I went through the asanas, I reviewed my conversation with Sheila, how James acted, and that Amanda had tracked me down for the diary. Normally, I keep a quiet mind in yoga class, but that was impossible today.

  I arrived at the mansion at six forty-five that night, just as the last of the crew and staff were leaving. Jackson was in his truck on the phone, saying, “That’s a big help. Thanks. I’ll check in with you later.” He put the phone down and leaned out the window. “Just checking on the doxies. The dog sitter is going to stay with them until I get home.” He put his phone in his pocket and got out. “So how do you want to do this?”

  “Why don’t we start at the top of the house. If there’s a secret passage on one side of the mansion, maybe there’s another one on the other side, in the bedroom.”

  “Okay, but we’ve got to be careful. Remember what happened to Tom.”

  “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “Let’s take Qigong along. At least he can bark and let us know if someone’s coming.”

  “Which would also give us away.”

  “I know, but I’ll feel safer with him.”

  So with Qigong beside us, we entered the house and began climbing the stairs. On the top floor we headed into the bedroom. It had a depressing vibe. The furniture was covered in sheets, and the olive-green paint was peeling from the walls. The yellowing shades on the two windows were drawn. “This was Max’s bedroom, right?”

  “It used to be,” Jackson replied. “According to what Mrs. Florrick told us, when he got older he took a room on the bottom floor. I think Roger used to stay here when he visited.”

  “But if it was originally Max’s room, it would make sense that he’d have a secret way to get in and out.”

  “Maybe.” Jackson opened the door of the closet. This one didn’t have shelves but a rod with what had to be hundreds of hangers, holding coats, jackets, suits, shirts, and slacks, all jammed together so thickly that we couldn’t even tell that a wall was behind them.

  “I’m getting the feeling that Max never threw anything out,” I said.

  Jackson knelt down, turned on his flashlight, and crawled under the clothing. He disappeared for a couple of minutes. Then I heard him thump on the back wall of the closet.

  “Sounds hollow. Let’s take a look, but first we’ve got to get this cleaned out.” He got to his feet and started removing hangers from the closet.

  “Give ’em to me. I’ll put them on the bed.”

  The clothes smelled musty and old. Qigong jumped up on the bed and burrowed into the pile of old wool coats. He seemed to be having fun so I didn’t stop him. It wasn’t as if Max would be wearing them again.

  Jackson came out of the closet and dumped another load on the bed on top of Qigong.

  “There you go, buddy. Have fun.”

  We cleared out enough of the clothing for us both to walk into the closet and examine its back wall. Sure enough, there was the faint outline of a door.

  “Okay, now to find the latch to open this.” I watched as Jackson felt around the door. A few moments later, with a click the door opened a few inches. He pulled it all the way open, clicked on his flashlight, and stepped inside. “It looks just like the other one. It probably leads to the side door on the ground floor.”

  “Let’s see. C’mon, Qigong.” Qigong jumped off the bed and ran after Jackson while I trailed behind.

  Jackson pushed away the fraying cobweb at the top of the stairs and stepped down. This stairway was also built on a spiral and was even tighter and more cramped than the one in the bathroom. It felt claustrophobic, but I gripped the metal rail and stepped down. The air was musty and I started coughing from all the dust.

  It felt as if we’d been descending for hours when we finally arrived at another door.

  Jackson tried to turn the knob. “It’s stuck.” He kicked the door and tried it again. The door swung open. Thin evening light filtered through high windows ahead of us.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Jackson exclaimed. “We’re in the garage!”

  We stepped inside the musty space. My flashlight picked out an old sit-down lawn mower; a Peg-Board holding hammers, screwdrivers, and pliers; old paint cans and brushes on workbenches—and two antique cars from the 1920s. One was a jet-black Crossley from England, and t
he other, a yellow convertible Model A Ford.

  “I was wrong,” Jackson said, his voice soft with amazement. “Those old cars were right here all along.”

  “Ron said that they moved the liquor to New York by putting it in secret compartments in the cars. Let’s see what we can find.”

  Jackson walked over to the Crossley and started searching it. I went over to the Model A and did the same. Fortunately neither car was locked. We both started in the front and moved to the back. The Ford’s front and back seats yielded nothing.

  “Jackson,” I said, puzzled, “this car has no trunk.”

  “I don’t think they had built-in trunks then. This one has an attached trunk.”

  He was right. A black box—sort of like the kind of trunk you buy for a kid going to sleepaway camp—was attached to the back of the Crossly. Jackson jiggled a small padlock that was attached to it, and it opened. “Rust,” he said. He opened the box, and I shone my flashlight into it as he ran his hand along the inside. I heard his breath catch as he touched the back wall of the trunk. Then he pushed a spot, and a small door popped open. He shone his flashlight inside and pulled out a dusty bottle with a handwritten label that said GIN, and a yellowed copy of an old local newspaper called the North Fork News.

  The paper’s headline reported Daniel Russell’s death and the story that followed confirmed what I had learned so far, namely that the death was suspicious and that Max Bixby was a suspect. But someone had scribbled a message in the margin. We both leaned in closer to try to read it: Edith Thorne. What looked like a phone number had been scribbled over, so it was unreadable.

  “Edith Thorne,” I said. “That’s the same name on the letter I found at Tom’s house. She wanted him to contact her.”

  “It’s an interesting find. But I’m not sure that it relates to Roger’s murder—or even Daniel’s. Besides, I think we should go. We’ve been here long enough.”

  Jackson was right. It was an interesting find, but I had no idea if it was anything more than that. He carefully opened the garage door, and after making sure that no one was watching, we walked out.

  I rounded the house and noticed activity inside the mansion. “Jackson, there are lights on in the study. Someone is in there.” I tucked the newspaper in my back pocket. “I thought you said everyone had gone to celebrate Pierre’s birthday.”

  “They did. It was a big deal. Everyone had to go. Got to keep the director happy.”

  “Not Mrs. Florrick.”

  Jackson shook his head. “It wouldn’t be her. She only works in the house during the day. Nights, she’s in her own cottage. Besides, those are small, moving lights. Whoever is in there is using flashlights. If Mrs. Florrick were in the house, I don’t think she’d have to be sneaky about it.”

  We walked over to the window. “So, then who is it?” I thought about the article that I’d read in the Suffolk Times. “Maybe these are those burglars that have been going around town.”

  “Could be. If so, I need to stop them. Follow my lead and keep quiet.” He took my hand and we crept toward the house. Jackson tried the front door. “It’s open. I locked it when we went in before.”

  I felt my heart start to beat faster. What if it was the murderer in there?

  Slowly, Jackson turned the knob and opened the door. I scooped Qigong up in my arms so the patter of his toenails wouldn’t give us away. Then we crept into the hall, as silently as possible. When we were about ten feet from the study, we stopped and listened. It sounded like two people talking to each other.

  Jackson strode into the study, reached for the light switch, and flipped it on.

  There, ransacking the shelves and grabbing all the first editions and shoving them into boxes, were Arthur and Agatha Beasley.

  “Stop what you’re doing!” Jackson shouted.

  Arthur and Agatha froze, clicked off their flashlights, and put the books down on the coffee table. Both of them wore white coveralls, bootees, and gloves.

  “Who are you?” Arthur said.

  “I’m Jackson Spade, head of security for the MJ’s Mind shoot. Who are you?”

  “I know who they are,” I said. “Jackson, this is Arthur and Agatha Beasley. They’re the owners of the Curious Kitten. I bought your anniversary present there. They also have plenty of expensive first editions. Did you steal them from the Bixbys? Is that how you got them?”

  Arthur looked at Agatha and shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Roger sold them to us.”

  Jackson walked over to the coffee table and pointed at the books. “And now that he’s dead, you thought you’d help yourself.”

  “We’re only doing this because Carly, his wife, wouldn’t deal with us,” Agatha said. “She’s been very unreasonable.”

  “Oh, so you had no choice,” Jackson said. “Give me a break.”

  “Why was Roger selling the books in the first place?” I asked.

  “Roger was selling off family heirlooms to replace money lost from a risky hedge fund in the 2008 stock market crash,” Arthur said. “This was on top of learning that Max had essentially left him a worthless house. He’d mortgaged the place within an inch of its life to pay for the elaborate séances he liked to hold. He used to fly in psychics from Europe and even Russia.”

  That confirmed what Simon had said about the house being worthless.

  “So when he was murdered, you decided to just take what you wanted,” Jackson said. “And you think that’s okay?”

  Arthur shrugged. “In this economy you have to do what you can to stay afloat. If we didn’t take the books, they would continue to degenerate. We’re giving them a good home and passing them along to people who really appreciate them.”

  Jackson took out his phone. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Do you have to?” Arthur looked distressed. “We promise not to do it anymore if you don’t call.”

  Jackson started to punch numbers into his phone. “You won’t do it again for sure if I do.” He finished dialing and put the phone to his ear.

  Agatha scurried over to him. “We know that Willow is investigating Roger’s murder, and we have information that will help you if you’ll let us go.”

  Jackson looked at me. I nodded. He stopped the call. “Okay, you’ve got our attention. Start talking, but if this information isn’t helpful or is false in any way, I’m still calling the police.” He motioned to the couch, and Arthur and Agatha sat down. I pulled out my phone and turned on the recorder.

  Arthur leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. “Max and my father, Fred, were friends when they were younger. Both of them were born and grew up in Great Neck. Max used to spend his summers out here at the family house, and sometimes my father was invited along for weekends and holidays. Even back then, my father said, Max Bixby had big dreams. When Max was a teenager, he always talked about working for his father’s company. He wanted to make it a worldwide success. He had no siblings, and when his father died when he was twenty-seven, he inherited everything. He was ambitious and ruthless. He took over the company, fired employees who had been there for years, and brought in new ones. It caused a lot of resentment.

  “When Prohibition came, Max seized the opportunity to become even richer. He worked with local fishermen and his caretaker, Daniel Russell, to move booze from the three-mile limit to New York.”

  So far this was similar to Ron Turner’s story. “So your father knew Daniel Russell?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Arthur said. “He knew him. My father had opened his dental practice in Great Neck, but he still came out to Greenport on the weekends with my mother. This was before I was born. My parents liked to hunt for antiques. When my dad retired, he opened his own store, and I was fortunate enough to apprentice there.”

  “I hope this is leading to something that will help us,” Jackson said, shifting from one foot to the other.

  “I’m getting to that,” Arthur said. “One weekend, about six months after Daniel Russe
ll was murdered, my parents went out to visit Max on the weekend. It was a surprise; Max didn’t know they were coming. As my father told it, the door was open when they arrived. So they walked into the house, and they heard voices, loud ones, a real screaming match. They never saw the woman, but someone was shouting at Max, telling him that he was a monster, that he’d destroyed her life. And he was telling her that she was a crazy woman who could never see the truth. That he only did what he did because he loved her.”

  “Rebecca Russell,” I said.

  Arthur nodded. “I’d say so. That’s what my father thought.”

  “And?”

  “And that was all. Max must have heard them come in because he charged into the entryway, accused them of eavesdropping, and ordered them off the property. They didn’t speak after that.”

  Jackson ran his hand through his short, dark hair. “Well, that’s interesting but not much help. Everyone back then was sure Max killed Daniel Russell. And no one could prove it.”

  “Except, I think there’s one person who can,” Arthur added quickly. “I told you my parents used to socialize with the Bixbys. There was someone else in that crowd, a woman writer. Years after the murder, I think it must have been the early 1960s, my father ran into her, and they got to talking about Max. He mentioned that time they’d been thrown out of the mansion, and how he always believed it was Rebecca Russell they’d overheard. And she said it was, and my father asked her how she could be so sure, and she said something cryptic about for every story you go to the source. But she wouldn’t say any more.”

  “That sounds like she either got it from Max or Rebecca,” Jackson said.

  “What was this writer’s name?” I asked.

  Arthur drew his brows together. “I asked my father that same question. He didn’t remember, exactly. But he said it had something to do with a rosebush.”

  “A rosebush?” Jackson echoed.

  I pulled the old newspaper out of my back pocket. “Could it have been Edith Thorne?

  Arthur snapped his fingers together and pointed at me. “That’s it!”

  “So how exactly does this help us with the case?” Jackson said.