Death in Dark Blue

by Julia Buckley

  “Not to rush things, but can we start the interview?” Sam said. “I have a client call at four o’clock.”

  Elliott nodded. “Absolutely. Do you mind if I tape this interview, so that I can transcribe it later? I’ll send you an online link to the tape.”

  “Fine with me,” Sam said.

  Camilla and I nodded. Elliott put his small recorder in the center of the table, took another sip of tea and said, “Mr. West, do you have any idea what happened to your wife?”

  “No. But I am working hard to find out, both by cooperating with the New York police and other agencies looking into Victoria’s disappearance, and with the help of a private detective who I hired when Victoria disappeared. I am, and have always been, concerned about my wife’s welfare. Victoria and I were divorcing, but we were doing so amicably, and there was no ill feeling on either side. Not much, anyway. We had gotten beyond that.”

  “And are the police having any luck in finding her? It’s been quite some time since the photograph proving she is alive was unearthed.”

  “It’s been two months. I’m not sure about the police, but my private detective was pursuing a very promising lead that turned out to be false. It’s frustrating and heartbreaking, and we are worried for Victoria. For the first time in a year I was contacted by her parents,” Sam said. He didn’t look at me, perhaps because he realized this was yet another thing he had not shared with our group. Would he dismiss this, too, as something that didn’t matter?

  “And why did they contact you?”

  “They apologized. For a long time they believed I had made their daughter disappear. Now they feel contrite, and they asked how they could help to find her.”

  “Would you mind if I reached out to them for this story?”

  “Not at all. I don’t know if they want to go on the record, but you can certainly try.”

  I was impressed with Sam’s demeanor. He didn’t look ill at ease, which described the way I had felt since Elliott had walked in.

  Elliott turned to Camilla. “How did you happen to become friends with Sam West?”

  Camilla folded her hands. “I met Sam when he came to Blue Lake more than a year ago. I knew of his story from the headlines, and I sensed from the start that he was a man of integrity. I have never wavered in that belief. Sam is my good friend.” She smiled at Sam, and his eyes reflected his gratitude.

  “And you, Miss London? When did you meet Sam West?”

  “I met him on the day I moved here to work with Camilla, about two months ago. I was walking Camilla’s dogs and Sam was smoking in front of his house. He’s since stopped smoking. Another testament to Sam’s willpower.” I smiled at him, and he looked relieved.

  “You didn’t think he was guilty, either?”

  “No, at no point.”

  “And why is it that you and Mrs. Graham were so convinced of Mr. West’s innocence?”

  I pointed at Sam. “You can see it. His body language doesn’t reflect any artifice. He was genuinely worried about his wife and hurt that the world would think so badly of him. In fact, people seemed to take great pleasure in believing the worst of a stranger without any proof. Maybe this is the effect that Internet news has had upon people. They just want another headline, another scandal, to feed their voracious desire for gossip.”

  “Not all reporters have given up on the notion of coverage with integrity,” Elliott assured us with a solemn expression. “And this piece will be a balanced story; I am not aiming for a Ted Strayer–style shock blog post.”

  I bowed my head slightly, but I still felt angry, thinking back. “Even now there are people who treated Sam abominably who have never come forward and apologized. Make no mistake about it, they owe him an apology. You can’t treat a human being as a leper and then realize you were wrong and just shrug it off. Feel free to quote me on that,” I said, my voice bitter.

  Sam’s smile was wry. “Lena has been a vocal proponent of my innocence, as you can see.”

  Elliott nodded. “Speaking of your innocence. There is a new reality to discuss, and that is the death of Taylor Brand, a woman who had publically blogged about your guilt, but who then acknowledged your innocence in recent weeks. Unlike the people Miss London just complained about, Miss Brand did apologize to you in writing, and she hinted that she would come out to Blue Lake to apologize in person. Did she ever contact you?”

  Sam shook his head. “I’ve known Taylor for a long time. We actually dated briefly in college.” He darted a look at me, then directed his gaze back at Elliott. “Then, as fate would have it, Taylor ended up introducing me to one of her friends, Victoria Wallace, and of course Vic and I eventually married. After that, Victoria and Taylor kept in touch, but I did not keep in touch with Taylor, or really anyone from our school days. I was focused on my career, I suppose, and building my list of clients. I became aware of Taylor’s blog through Lena. It was a photo on the blog that made Lena realize that Vic was still alive.” He paused and took a sip of his own tea. “About a week ago I learned that Taylor had made the statement about me on her blog. I wasn’t happy about it, to be honest, because I was just starting to enjoy my life outside of the headlines, and Taylor’s comment guaranteed that I would be in them again.”

  “But you never spoke to her in person.”

  “No. And I didn’t think she would actually come to Blue Lake. I only knew she did because I came home yesterday to find the police had surrounded my property. Doug Heller told me that Taylor Brand had been found dead behind my house.”

  “This is Detective Heller of the Blue Lake Police?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “He wasn’t. He’s another person who has come to believe in my innocence, and he feels a certain amount of remorse for the suspicions he harbored in the past. He’s been decent to me since then.”

  “How did Detective Heller know that it was Taylor Brand?”

  Sam darted a look at Camilla, who nodded. He said, “It was actually Lena who stumbled across Taylor’s body. She had come to my house to give me some mail, and after she put it in the box, she saw something in the woods. Taylor had been wearing a dark-colored coat, and it stood out against the snow. Lena thought it was an animal, and she went closer. She recognized Taylor from the blog photos. There are quite a lot of pictures of her there, I guess.”

  Elliott turned to me. “What did you think when you realized it was Taylor Brand?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t believe it. I had never expected to see her in person, and here she was, in this little town, and—it was cruel, what someone did. I felt very bad for her. She was trying to find her friend.”

  “Did you wonder why she was in Sam West’s yard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ask Mr. West?”

  “He wasn’t home. As he told you, I was dropping off some mail, and I was heading right back to Camilla’s, but I happened to see something in the snow. I guess my curiosity got the better of me. When I found her I called Doug Heller.”

  “Doug?”

  “Yes. He’s a friend. I worked with him on a previous case in Blue Lake, one you’ve probably heard of, involving Camilla. People were using a tunnel underneath her property for drug smuggling, and one of those people was shot and killed on the beach back here.” I pointed to the spot where, months earlier, a man had died. “Doug investigated his murder and ended up arresting his killer right here in this house. He’s a devoted and decorated cop, and I’m sure he’ll get to the bottom of this crime, as well.”

  “For such a little town, there’s a lot of high-profile crime and intrigue,” Elliott said.

  “Would that it were otherwise,” Camilla commented, sipping her tea.

  Elliott turned back to her. “Mrs. Graham, you are a world-renowned writer of mystery and suspense fiction. Do you ever look at this complicated
web of crimes over the last two months and see it with the eyes of an author? If this were a book, what would happen next?”

  Camilla nodded. “I have occasionally marveled at the complexity of the plot in which we have all become embroiled. In the novels, of course, the perpetrator is always brought to justice, and he or she will be this time, too. There are many good minds working on this problem. They will solve it, believe me, and soon. It is like a book, though. We have a hero to root for: Sam West. He is the man implicated in something that does not involve him, the protagonist fighting against forces beyond his control. We also have a love interest: Lena London, the woman who devoted herself to Sam’s exoneration and won his heart in the process.”

  I looked up, surprised, and was treated to Sam’s slow smile. My face grew warm, and I became aware of Elliott’s gaze darting between Sam and me. He was sharp, this Jake Elliott, and I wondered vaguely if it had been a mistake letting him into our house and our confidence . . .

  “Of course there are enemies in the story,” Camilla was saying. “Unfortunately we cannot name them yet, but they are there, just out of focus. There is Taylor Brand’s murderer. There is whoever made off with Victoria West—we are not convinced that she disappeared of her own volition, after all—and there are the paparazzi who would purposely distort important details for their own ends. Perhaps there is no link between them, and perhaps there is. You could help us find that out, Mr. Elliott, with some true investigative journalism. Why not investigate Sam West’s claims instead of pursuing Sam West, as all the others have chosen to do?”

  Elliott smiled. “You would have made a good reporter yourself, Mrs. Graham.”

  Camilla shrugged and sipped her tea.

  Elliott turned back to Sam. “Your wife has obviously made no attempt to contact you.”

  “I don’t know if she’s made an attempt, but she hasn’t contacted me since the day of her disappearance, and she left everything behind—her phone, her credit cards, her purse. It’s hard to believe she would plan to go away and not take those things with her.”

  “Yes.” Elliott studied some notes that he was scratching on a sheet of paper. “And you have no idea why Taylor Brand was here in Blue Lake?”

  “Not at all. I thought she was still in New York, as I mentioned to Lena that morning. We—happened to see each other in town, and I told her that Taylor Brand’s blog post was putting my name right back in the headlines.”

  “Did that make you angry?”

  Sam looked irritated. “Homicidal, do you mean? No, it made me depressed. I never sought out all this media attention, and if I had my way I would never be the subject of public scrutiny again. Try it some time, Mr. Elliott.”

  “Jake. “

  “Try it, Jake. It’s no fun.”

  “I believe that. And I also think it seems unlikely that you would kill Taylor Brand on your own property and then leave her body lying there in the open.”

  “It is as unlikely a scenario as it is untrue.”

  Elliott nodded, scratching out some more notes.

  The interview went on for twenty more minutes. Jake Elliott was thorough. He asked Sam what he’d been doing in the year since Victoria’s disappearance. He asked Camilla how long she had lived in Blue Lake, and why she had chosen to live here. He asked me if I had any angry ex-boyfriends who might resent Sam West. That surprised me, but I said no. I didn’t even mention my ex-boyfriend Kurt, because he was from a lifetime ago, and it was he who ended our relationship.

  Finally Jake Elliott gathered his things and thanked us all for the interview. “I have just one last question, Mr. West.”

  “Sam.”

  “Sam, if your wife returned today, this moment, what would you say to her?”

  Sam’s eyebrows rose, but he thought about the question. “If she has been kept away against her will, I would ask her if she’s all right, and if there’s anything I can do for her. If she left of her own volition, and was aware that I was accused of killing her—if she saw all that and still did nothing, I would ask her why she hated me so much that she could let me be prosecuted for a crime I didn’t commit. How she could let me go to jail, perhaps forever, and not do something to prevent it.”

  “It must hurt, contemplating that second scenario.”

  “It does. As I said, Vic and I didn’t hate each other. I didn’t think so, anyway.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your candor.”

  Elliott stood up and shook our hands, one after the other. “I think you’ll find that this story is fair and balanced, and perhaps it will encourage the public to see you in a new way. You have some good friends here, Sam.”

  “I know. I don’t deserve them, but I seem to have them anyway.”

  Sam walked Elliott to the door, then returned and gave Camilla a hug. She offered several comforting pats on his back, then pushed him toward me. “I must run upstairs for a moment. Sam, you’re welcome to return for dinner; Lena and I have some work to do for the next few hours.”

  She disappeared, kindly leaving me with Sam. I moved around the table and into his arms. I leaned my head on his chest and inhaled the scent of him while I listened to his heart beating. He rested his chin on the top of my head and said, “I think it will be all right, Lena.”

  I sniffed, squeezing him more tightly.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “You know those pictures of us that some jerk with a camera decided to share with the world?”

  I looked up at him.

  “Now, don’t get all angry again. I was just going to say that you look very pretty in all of them.”

  I shook my head, regretful. “You were right. I should have listened and stayed away from you.”

  “Except that you couldn’t, because I am irresistible.” He laughed at my expression, and then he kissed me. Eventually he added, “And since everyone knows about us now, because I’m sure the reputable news stations will have linked to that stupid blog, then I can see you all I want. So I will come for dinner, lovely Lena.”

  “Good. We still need to talk, and—oh! Oh, God. There’s something I need to tell you and Camilla and Doug, but I didn’t because I was distracted by the whole dating Taylor thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about Nikon. The library research lady found him for us—he’s a man, Sam. Nikon is a man, and he’s rich, and I think that makes him dangerous.”

  8

  Margot had long wished for some kind of clue to set her on the right path.

  Now she had one, but it only made her realize how very perilous the path would be.

  —From Death on the Danube

  CAMILLA WAS JUBILANT as soon as she saw the information; she was convinced that it would be a matter of days, perhaps hours, before we found Nikon Lazos and, hopefully, Victoria West. We sat studying the files from Belinda, and Sam pointed at one of the pictures. “I think I may have seen this man once. It was one of the last times Victoria and I went out together; we did it as a favor to a friend who was hosting a charity ball. We agreed to bury the hatchet for the evening and go to support Rebecca. I think I saw Vic talking to this man!”

  He turned to us, more excited than I had ever seen him. “My God, I think this is it!”

  Camilla nodded. “I do, as well. It’s not a coincidence that his name popped up whenever Lena searched both yachts and Nikon. It’s because he is Nikon, and he owns a yacht, and Victoria is most likely on it.”

  “As what? A prisoner?” I said.

  Sam shook his head. “God, I hope not. And yet how else do we explain her absence for a year? Victoria is a strong-willed woman. She wouldn’t let some man keep her cooped up on the ocean all year long. She’d want to come back to the city, see her friends, see her family, work on saving her business, go shopping, for God’s sake. She wouldn’t just leave that behind.”

  “And yet in the Greek
photo—she does look afraid, but not—abused. She’s fit and tanned and sitting on her own. She’s not in chains, or anything.”

  “There are all kinds of imprisonment,” Camilla said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Doug needs to know, and then he can notify the FBI, and Sam, you can tell your investigator. And someone will figure out where he is. This needs to happen now.”

  We were all in a state of near-euphoria at the idea that the long-lost Victoria might at last be found, and at first we didn’t hear the knocking on the door.

  Eventually Camilla tuned in, and the dogs began to bark. “Sam, would you get that?” she asked.

  Sam left, and returned soon after with Doug Heller. “What’s going on?” Doug said. “I only have about twenty minutes—”

  “Nikon is a man!” I yelled.

  His eyes grew large. “What?”

  “He’s a man.” I held out the picture of the three men, along with the caption. “He’s N. Leandros Lazos. He’s a Greek tycoon, and he owns a yacht. Belinda at the library found this for me, and she’s working on finding his latest yacht. He sold his yacht called Apollo two years ago.”

  Doug was still staring at the picture. “What?” he said again, this time almost joyfully.

  “It is hard to believe, isn’t it?” Camilla asked, smiling.

  “For so long we have looked for a break in this damn case—” he sent an apologetic look to Camilla. “Sorry. I just—this looks promising.”

  “So you’ll pass it on, right? To all the people who need to know. And they can go get him.”

  “Well, it’s not quite that easy, but yes, I will.”

  “I feel like getting Belinda Frailey a huge bouquet of flowers,” I said.

  “Who?” asked Doug.

  “The librarian who found this information.”

  “How did we not find it?” he asked, his face still rather shocked.

  “It’s not that we were bad at searching; it’s that she’s very good,” I said.