Final Settlement

by Vicki Doudera

  Tina reached out and patted Terri’s arm. “Honey, you could have told Tripp. You still can. That man loves you, and I know he’d understand.”

  She wiped her cheek. “Maybe. But I don’t think I want to take that chance.”

  Darby pictured Lorraine’s little ledger. The column for “TD” was the longest one in her book, going back more than a decade. “I’m glad for your sake that this all stopped.”

  Terri sniffed. “Thank you. You have no idea how relieved I’ve been to think that she can’t blackmail me anymore. I could never have harmed Lorraine, but I wasn’t sorry that she died. I know that sounds terrible.”

  “After what that woman did to you, all those years!” Tina ran a hand through her red curls. “Of all the deceitful, money-grabbing schemes!” She huffed out a breath and made a face at Darby. “You know, I’m starting to think that Robichaud did us all a big favor when he shoved Lorraine into the water.”

  Darby flashed on his description of Lorraine as a “conniving bitch.” Certainly it seemed he had despised the woman. But why had he killed her?

  _____

  “Do you think someone paid him?” Miles asked Darby an hour later. She’d called the British journalist as soon as Terri and Tina left, assured him that she was healing fine, and now they were discussing Dave Robichaud’s possible motives for murder.

  “I hadn’t thought of that, Miles. I suppose that’s an option, isn’t it?” She was propped up in bed with several pillows taking any pressure off her shoulder, a legal pad and pen on the comforter next to her.

  “I remember a case back in London in which a metropolitan policeman was pulling in several hundred thousand pounds a year doing ‘favors’ for business associates,” Miles said. “Perhaps someone contracted with Robichaud to get rid of Lorraine.”

  “Maybe one of her blackmail victims,” Darby mused, picking up the pad.

  “Right.” Miles paused. “Now let’s see, you’ve got AB—that’s Alcott Bridges, right? Not likely that he paid Robichaud, is it?”

  “No. For one thing, he was completely surprised to hear of Lorraine’s death, so it’s unlikely that he arranged it.”

  “Good point,” Miles conceded. “Leonard Marcus was incarcerated at the time, and although that doesn’t seem to stop people from making deals with those on the street, he’d stopped making payments to Lorraine by the time of her death, right?”

  “Yes.” She jotted down more initials. “It’s not Terri Dodge—she doesn’t have the heart for murder.”

  “You’re sure about that? She would only have had to arrange it, not pull the trigger herself.”

  “Miles, I looked into her eyes as she told us about being blackmailed by Lorraine for the past ten years. She’s not a killer.” Darby remembered the scribbled “ab” next to Terri’s initials on Chief Dupont’s notes. How had the Chief guessed Terri’s secret?

  “Okay. So that leaves Bartholomew Anderson, and ‘CR’, right?”

  “Yes.” She underlined Anderson’s name and pursed her lips. “I can definitely see Bart arranging a hit on Lorraine, can’t you? After all, she had that file of compromising photos, and he was terrified that she’d go to his wife.”

  “Right. When did he start making payments to Lorraine?”

  Darby consulted her notepad. “Five years ago.”

  “What about ‘CR’?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “Interesting. ‘CR’ was Lorraine’s newest victim, correct?”

  “That’s right, Miles. Maybe he or she knew early on that they weren’t going to take it, and convinced Detective Robichaud to help them out with a well-placed shove.”

  “That would mean that whoever ‘CR’ is, he or she would also have known that Robichaud was operating on the wrong side of the law,” Miles commented.

  “Yes.” Darby groaned. Her shoulder was aching, and she suspected it was time for another pain pill.

  “Are you okay, love?” Miles voice was full of concern.

  “Just sore.” She tried adjusting the pillows again, but one would not go flat against the headboard. She pulled on it, and spotted something red wedged in between the mattress and the wall.

  The lacquered jewelry box.

  “Miles! I’ve found the red box, the one that belonged to my mother!”

  “Wonderful, darling, but I didn’t know it had gone astray.”

  Quickly she told him about Kenji’s search for the object and his questions to her on the ridge. “Tina told me that he’d torn this place apart looking for it,” she explained. “The only reason he tracked me down was because he couldn’t find it.” She ran a finger over the jewelry box’s smooth surface, touching the tip of Mount Fuji and the intricate blue-tile roofed temples. She undid the little brass latch and opened it up.

  “Miles, if Kenji had found this box, not only would I have lost this link to my mother, but he would have located whatever missing piece of the formula he needed.” She took a shaky breath. “I need to call Ed Landis and let him know.”

  “I agree. Ring him up first thing in the morning.” His tone changed. “You also need to get some rest, Darby. After all, you did just get out of hospital. You must be right knackered.”

  Darby smiled. Privately she’d begun to call Miles’s delightfully odd expressions “Briticisms.” “By that do you mean that I’m tired?”

  He chuckled. “The word I was going for is exhausted, actually.”

  She yawned, as if proving his point. “I’m knackered all right, but I’m also relieved to have this little box.” She touched the silk of the obi and bit her lip, overcome with gratitude. “I almost feel as if my mother were watching over me.”

  “Perhaps she is.” Miles’s voice was soft. He waited a second, before telling her he loved her, and then added gently, “Now go to sleep.”

  _____

  Not even the prescription painkillers could keep Darby from having nightmares about her recent ordeal. She dreamt she was on a snow-capped peak resembling Mount Fuji. On her feet were enormous snowshoes. Behind her, a man in a ski mask and silk obi was fast approaching, but she could not lift even one of her legs …

  She awoke in a cold sweat. Lying under the comforter, her heart racing, she took deep breaths and thought about the events on Juniper Ridge.

  Kenji Miyazaki, wearing a ski mask, had hunted her down because he could not locate the lacquered red box. He’d had nothing to do with Lorraine’s death, and yet Kenji had worn the very item of clothing Alison Dyer had seen through her scope. Had it been a coincidence, and nothing more?

  Darby pushed herself up with her good shoulder. She reached for the glass of water she kept on the nightstand and took a sip. Dave Robichaud had confessed to pushing Lorraine to her death, but he had not given any reason why. Robichaud shot Kenji, Darby recalled. Not to protect me, but to give himself an alibi. If he had succeeded in breaking my neck on the ridge, he would have blamed Kenji for my death, and no one would have known the truth.

  Darby swallowed. There was absolutely no sleeping for her now. Slowly she climbed out of bed and pulled on her robe. The bedside clock read three-thirty in the morning, but Darby was wide awake.

  She picked up the lacquered jewelry box and cradled it carefully as she walked downstairs. In a few minutes she had a small fire going in the hearth, and she’d put on a pot of water to boil. The familiar routines of tending the fire and preparing tea soothed her jangled nerves, and soon the haunting ski-masked man of her nightmare was forgotten.

  Once the water had boiled and her tea was ready, Darby glanced out the kitchen window, toward the cove. The winter sky sparkled with stars, and out of habit she looked for the constellation of her youth.

  There he was: King Cepheus, the promise breaker, sitting on his throne with his pointy crown. She imagined her father retelling the story, heard him describing heroic Perseus, and felt a warm rush of gratitude. I have wonderful memories, she realized. If I let myself recall them, I keep the people I love alive.

  T
earing herself from the array of bright stars, Darby settled on the faded couch with her Constant Comment and the red box. She sipped the hot beverage and opened the brass clasp, pulling out the jewelry box’s treasures. Now the presence of Jada Farr was with her, both in the contents of the box and in the scent and taste of her mother’s favorite tea. She smiled. Here was the dark blue obi that her mother might have worn fastened around a kimono that had no doubt been exquisite. She gazed at the photo of her mother as a child and then fingered the wisps of straw from some faraway temple. What was it Eric Thompson at the Westerly Art Museum had called them? Shimenawa. She smiled at her recall of the Japanese word. Lorraine Delvecchio’s got nothing on my memory, she thought.

  Abruptly she pushed the lacquered box aside. Her off-handed statement cut to the core of the dead woman’s murder. What had she “had” on the mysterious ‘CR’? Was that the person who had persuaded Detective Robichaud to take action?

  I need a link between the detective and people from Lorraine’s past, she thought. But how could she find anything on Lorraine, when she’d had so few friends, no family, and few admirers?

  Darby grabbed her computer and found the website for the Manatuck Gazette. Perhaps a search of Lorraine’s name would yield something interesting.

  Only one news entry surfaced, an announcement of Lorraine’s appointment to the staff of the Manatuck Police Department. Had she been blackmailing someone there, Darby wondered? Had she encountered something that would have embarrassed Detective Robichaud, and prompted him to take her life?

  She took a sip of the soothing tea, tasting the spicy scented orange flavor, and tried to think. Someone had hated Lorraine enough to want her dead, and had arranged for a dirty cop to do the deed. Who?

  Frustrated, she pushed the computer aside and picked up the jewelry box again. Now that the notebook was in the hands of the FBI, the only item remaining was the little metal Buddha. Darby picked him up and looked into his placid, plump face. Her mother had acquired him at a tourist site—or at least that had been Eric Thompson’s explanation.

  Darby held the chubby deity in her hand, remembering the curator’s comment that today’s versions were made of plastic. They were undoubtedly quite a bit lighter, Darby thought, although it was surprising that this one, made of solid metal, should not feel heavier in her grasp.

  She pulled the little Buddha closer and scrutinized its image. A grinning face with a wide body smiled back at her. The Buddha wore a flowing robe and little sandals. She flipped him over. A belt encircled the Buddha’s waist, upon which appeared to be a small crack in the metal.

  Darby inspected the crack. A coin slot? How had she not seen this before? Why hadn’t Eric Thompson noticed it? She peered at the opening, realizing that the little man was actually a piggy bank. She rattled the Buddha, but there were no coins inside.

  And yet … there was something inside of the opening. Perhaps a bill, Darby thought. She went into the kitchen for something long and skinny, but found only a toothpick. Tweezers. She had a set in her makeup bag upstairs.

  The tweezers pinched the piece of paper and gingerly Darby started pulling it out. Once it fell back inside the bank, but she managed to grab it again and move it slowly toward the slot. At last the item was free, and Darby saw that it was not currency, but a piece of white paper that had been intricately folded to fit inside the Buddha.

  She opened it up. Japanese writing, with a string of numbers, met her eyes.

  Darby bit her lip and leaned back on the sofa. In her hands she felt sure was the key to preparing one of the world’s worst biotoxins, a strain of bubonic plague capable of contaminating fresh water sources around the globe. She swallowed, her hands gripping the paper.

  The missing piece of the formula.

  SIXTEEN

  THE WHIR OF THE helicopter blocked out all other noise at the Merewether estate, its blades once again creating a blinding storm of snow. From the warmth of her vehicle, Darby watched Ed Landis emerge from the cockpit and run toward the car.

  He opened the door and climbed in beside her, pulling off a thick glove so that he could shake her hand.

  “Good morning! Boy, it’s cold up here. How do you all take it?” He shivered inside his thick survival coat. “What have you got for me, Darby?”

  She reached in her pocket and pulled out a plastic zipper bag with the folded paper inside it. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s what Kenji Miyazaki was after when he attacked me on the ridge.” She handed him the bag.

  “Christ, that’s right! How are you doing?” Landis’s handsome face showed concern.

  “My shoulder was dislocated and I have some lovely bruising on my face, but nothing a little foundation can’t cover,” she said.

  “Bet you’re glad Miyazaki’s dead,” the FBI agent said bluntly.

  “I’m relieved, put it that way. You probably heard about the other guy that tried to kill me.”

  “Robichaud, right? Sounds like one of law enforcement’s finest. Why was he after you?”

  Darby thought a moment. “You know, I’m not exactly sure. Obviously he felt threatened by something having to do with a local murder, but I don’t know what that something is.”

  “You were getting too close to the truth.”

  “I suppose, but it’s all still a puzzle.” She pointed at the plastic bag. “What about the formula Kenji tore from the journal? Do you know where it is?”

  Ed Landis raised his eyebrows. “We think we have it. Keep in mind it isn’t much good without this missing piece.”

  Darby nodded. “So what happens now?”

  “I take this back to Washington and it gets locked away where no one can get to it.”

  Darby thought about the little Buddha. The metal bank had kept the secret safe for decades. “I guess I’ll never know why my grandfather put that slip of paper in a separate place.”

  “I think I know why,” Landis said, tucking the plastic bag into the large pocket of his survival coat and zipping it securely shut. “Your grandfather understood human nature. He was afraid that someone would get their hands on the formula, and if that happened, he wanted a failsafe.” He pulled on his gloves and regarded the real estate agent. “Take it easy for a while. No more encounters with maniacs, alright?”

  Ed Landis opened the car door, slammed it shut with a little wave, and trotted across the snow to the waiting chopper.

  _____

  “So what is the latest news from Maine?” The smooth voice of ET was like a warm hug cutting through the chilly late-morning air as Darby walked to the Hurricane Harbor Café.

  “Oh, this and that,” Darby said, not wanting to alarm her assistant with the story of her near escape at the hands of two deadly men. “I’m helping Tina with a few properties, and still working on my own house when I can.”

  “Why is it I feel you’re not telling me everything?” His voice was concerned.

  “What, do you think you’re clairvoyant or something?” Darby tried to sound irritated, when actually she was asking herself whether her associate truly was psychic. “I’ll be back in San Diego next week, don’t worry. Meanwhile, what’s happening there?”

  “I’m extremely impressed with Claudia. She’s managing to get some deals underway, even though it’s the dead of winter.”

  Darby smiled. The “dead of winter” in San Diego meant seventy degree temperatures, the return of the whales, and fields of wildflowers, not heaps of crusted snow like she was climbing around now on her way to the Café.

  “That’s great. Please tell Claudia that I appreciate her hard work and that I’m looking forward to catching up.” Claudia Jones was a new member of Darby’s team, working as a sales agent while raising several young children. “And ET? I hope you know how grateful I am for all that you do.”

  “I know. Now you’d better let me get ready for work, or that boss of mine will have my head.”

  She laughed. “Goodbye, and thanks.”

  He hung up with a chuckle a
nd Darby pulled open the door of the restaurant, ready to sit by the woodstove with a big bowl of chowder.

  _____

  Donny Pease swiveled on his barstool and spotted Darby Farr entering the Café. She sunk gratefully into a chair by the woodstove, and began unzipping her red coat, wincing a little in pain.

  In an instant he was by her side.

  “Whaddya trying to do, Darby, dislocate that shoulder again?” Donny reached over, gently easing off her puffy coat. He draped it on an empty chair, his face crinkling into a look of fatherly concern. “Are you supposed to be up and gallivanting around?”

  “A girl needs to eat lunch, Donny,” she smiled. “Care to join me?”

  The older man considered her invitation. “Only if it’s my treat,” he said. “I insist.”

  “Okay, then. Grab a chair.”

  They both ordered bowls of chowder—Donny the haddock, and Darby the clam—and sat back and waited for them to arrive. Darby asked him whether he’d purchased flights for Mexico, and Donny gave a shy grin.

  “I bought them an hour or so ago,” he said. “We head right out of Portland.”

  “Where exactly are you going?”

  “The Yucatan peninsula, to a little village near Tulum.” He pointed at the mounds of snow piled outside the Café’s window. “Sure won’t miss shoveling the white stuff for a few weeks.”

  “I’ll bet you won’t,” said Darby, taking a sip of water. “I know I’m not going to miss it, either.”

  “When are you flying back to California?”

  “Sometime next week. First I have to get a little more work done on that house of mine.”

  “Like what?”

  “Get some cracked windows fixed, paint the upstairs bedroom, replace the old dishwasher—that type of thing.”

  “Make a list,” Donny advised, as their bowls of steaming soup arrived, “and leave it for me. You do recall I’ve been a caretaker for close to forty years, right?”

  “How could I forget?” The spry man had managed one of the island’s biggest estates, Fairview, until the property had changed owners. “How is the old place doing?”