by Carolyn Hart
Blythe’s words were fast and clipped. “Marian should have called the police.” A short silence. “But she didn’t. Instead, she obviously decided to handle everything herself. She should have come to me.” Anger rippled in Blythe’s voice. “I”—a decided emphasis—“am the trustee. I should have been informed. Oh.” There was a sudden catch in her voice. “It’s terrible. If she’d come to me, I would have insisted we contact the police. If we had, she would be alive now. Why didn’t she realize that Haklo didn’t matter that much, that Haklo wasn’t worth her life? But she was Marian and so damnably sure of herself.” There was an undertone of old rancor. “I suppose she accused the thief but promised she’d keep quiet if the thief left Haklo. I can see why Marian thought that was the best solution. Everyone would forget in time about the vandalism if it stopped. Instead…” Blythe trailed off.
Steve knew all of them pictured a dark figure edging up Marian’s stairs and placing a skateboard on the second step, returning unseen in the early-morning darkness to watch a woman fall to her death, then pick up a skateboard with gloved hands and slip silently away.
“Anyway”—Blythe sounded weary—“perhaps this information will be helpful to you. Do you have any questions?”
Katie’s face quirked in a sardonic smile. “That all seems clear, Miss Webster. Thank you for your call. And thank you, Miss Farley, for your report. I’ll be in touch.” As she clicked off the speakerphone, she raised an eyebrow at Steve. “Notice anything?”
“Yeah. Kind of interesting about the necklace. First, it’s put in Abby’s office. Second, Marian retrieves it. Third, the necklace is in Marian’s purse. Fourth, the necklace is on Blythe’s desk. Fifth, the necklace is found in Abby’s office.”
Katie flicked him an approving glance. “You got it. Starts with Abby, ends with Abby. What are the odds, Steve?”
Steve sat at his desk and tried to ignore the undercurrent of worry that had tugged at him ever since he’d heard Nela’s report over Katie’s speakerphone. Yes, she’d done good work. But there could be no doubt that she was now on the murderer’s watch list. He forced himself to concentrate and maintain the coldly analytical, unemotional attitude that made him a good reporter. Figuring out what to accept and what to discard came down to more than the five ws and an h. There had to be innate skepticism that questioned motives and discounted conventional wisdom.
In the case of Haklo, there were facts. New staff members had been added, including the director. Six incidents of vandalism and a theft occurred between mid-September and this week, beginning with a car fire. Marian Grant died in a fall. There were suppositions. The vandalism was committed to detract attention from the theft of a quarter-million-dollar necklace. Marian Grant threatened the thief. Marian Grant was murdered.
Steve accepted the facts, but there were two pieces of information, one that came to him, the other picked up by Nela in her talks today with staff, that entirely recast his ideas about what happened at Haklo and why.
He glanced at the clock. Just after seven. He reached for his cell, shook his head. He’d told her he was coming. As he slammed out of the office, a couple of folders and a legal pad under one arm, the worry he’d fought to contain made his throat feel tight. He had lots to say to Nela. He hoped she would listen.
17
Jugs’s ears tilted forward. He stared toward the front door, luminous green eyes unwavering.
Nela’s heart lifted. He’d said he would come. She shouldn’t feel this way. She hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Not since…Her gaze shifted to Bill’s photograph. But it was only a picture and there was, always, the desolate feeling of nothing there, nothing, nothing.
She was on her feet before the sound of a rapid knock. She’d left the porch light on. When she pulled the door back, Steve looked down at her. In the bright glare, his wiry red hair looked like a patch of flame and his blue eyes were commanding and insistent. His broad freckled face again surprised her because he wasn’t now a mirror image of a smooth, always-young celluloid figure. His face was not only the face of a man who could be kind and pleasant and thoughtful, but the face of a man with a hardened worldview and a memory of loss and betrayal. He was a man who had to be reckoned with and who’d taken up space in her life in a brief span of hours. But that was how life happened. Things changed, not just in hours but in minutes. Bill had walked up a dusty road in a distant land and the world turned gray and cold for her.
Cold…Steve’s ragged diamond-patterned sweater was familiar now. Before she thought, she blurted, “Don’t you ever wear a coat?”
“Too much bother. You okay?”
The query surprised her. There was worry in his eyes, worry and concern. She felt a flicker of happiness. She’d been so alone and now she didn’t feel alone anymore, not as long as he was here.
He looked into her eyes, saw her response. His smile was as warm as an embrace.
With a quick breath, Nela stepped back, knew she talked too fast. “I’m fine. Come in. Let me get you some coffee.”
She felt steadied as she served fresh hot coffee in thick white pottery mugs. They sat on the sofa, Nela taking care to provide space between them, disconcertingly but gloriously aware of his nearness.
Jugs jumped to the coffee table, sliding a little on Steve’s papers.
Steve grinned. “Hey, boy, you’re in the way.”
Jugs gazed at him for a moment, then flowed to the couch, settled between Steve and Nela.
As Nela reached down to stroke the black-and-tan striped back, Steve moved to smooth Jugs’s bristly ticked coat. Her hand brushed Steve’s. There was an instant’s pause, the two of them still, then Steve reached for the mug, spoke rapidly.
Nela listened, trying to corral her thoughts and her feelings. Steve was so near, so big, the remembered warmth of his touch, Bill, emptiness, Chloe, Haklo…
“…and here’s some stuff I put together about the people who have keys, plus I was in Katie’s office when you called this afternoon.” He handed her several sheets of paper.
Nela read swiftly. Steve’s bios added substance to her personal encounters with the staff members. She stopped reading when she turned to the sheet with the italicized head: Nela Farley’s Report to Katie Dugan. She started to hand back the sheets.
He gently massaged behind Jugs’s prominent ears, prompting a throaty purr. “Read all of it.”
Everything was as expected except for one surprising twist. In Nela’s report on Cole Hamilton, Steve had marked too many pretty girls always causes trouble with a canary yellow highlighter.
Nela repeated the sentence, looked at him inquiringly.
“That could have been an outlier. Nobody else has talked about pretty girls. But I picked up a vibe from Mokie Morrison this morning. He’s the cop who tried to deflect you from Katie. Mokie is a man with an eye for good-looking women. When he talked about Anne Nesbitt”—Steve’s grin was wry—“if he’d melted in a puddle right there in the squad room, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Apparently she was hot.” Another wry smile. “Presumably she still is. But here’s what I wonder.” He leaned back against the cushion. “Maybe we’ve been off on the wrong track, right from the start. The conventional wisdom dismissed the car fire in September, like it wasn’t a part of the stuff that started happening in November. What if the car fire was part of everything? What if somebody was angry about pretty girls?”
Nela stared. “Why?”
His gaze was serious when he answered. “Short answer, sex. Long answer, people can get twisted up in knots about love or lust or whatever you want to call it. Now”—his eyes narrowed—“I’m thinking something off the wall. Not the usual triangle stuff. But how about this. Anne Nesbitt apparently packed a potent punch. There are women”—there was an undertone of grimness in his voice—“who are like pots of honey to bears. Bears can’t help themselves. They have to nose around. Cole Hamilton may be old but he isn’t dead and he all but said in his gentlemanly way that testosterone bubbled. Mayb
e one of the bears thought he had a chance with her and then Hollis Blair arrives.”
“He really cares about Abby.” Nela shook her head. “He wouldn’t go after someone else.”
“Maybe not. But he has an aura around women. Right?”
Nela understood what Steve meant. “Yes.” She didn’t have to say more.
“In fact…” He broke off, pulled out his cell, found a number. “Hey, Robbie. I got a question. You’re a canny guy about people. You notice things. Think back to late last summer. I understand Anne Nesbitt was a pretty gal. Did Hollis Blair notice?” Steve listened, looked satisfied. “Pretty blatant, huh?…No, nothing to do with much of anything. Just a bet with a friend. We got to talking about Anne Nesbitt and I swore she was a magnet for males. Right…Thanks.”
“Robbie doesn’t like Hollis.”
Steve laughed. “Despises him, actually.” He was abruptly serious. “But Robbie notices things. He said every man up there but him found one reason or another for a nice chat with Anne every day. That included the director. With Hollis, I think it’s pretty much automatic pilot. Hollis learned a long time ago that ladies like him and he’s ready to soak up a little sun when he can. But maybe somebody thought the handsome young director had cut him out.”
Nela felt a wash of horror. “And he set her car on fire? That’s unbalanced.”
Steve’s gaze was somber. “Someone is desperately unbalanced. Step back and look at the vandalism. There’s a fury in everything that’s happened.”
Nela wasn’t convinced. “Anne Nesbitt left. Why the other things?”
“Hollis Blair is still there.”
Nela slowly shook her head. “I can’t imagine anyone at Haklo being that”—she looked at Steve, used his word—“twisted.” If Steve was right, someone she’d met, spoken with, perhaps shared a smile with, had a monstrous ego willing to destroy, steal, and ultimately kill because of jealousy. Or was the viciousness not even prompted by jealousy? Perhaps the motive was uglier, darker. Perhaps a perceived affront would not, could not be tolerated.
“There’s something bad out at Haklo.” He looked uneasy. “Like a nest of rattlesnakes. That’s why”—he reached out, took her hand—“I want you to back off. I’ve already told Katie what I think. She listened. She’ll be looking at them.”
Them…
Nela knew the list was short. If Steve was right, the vandal, thief, and killer was either Cole Hamilton, Francis Garth, or Peter Owens.
“Nela, stay in your office. Stay out of it. Leave everything to Katie.”
After Steve left, Nela poured another cup of coffee, carried it to the sofa, settled by Jugs.
The cat turned his wedge-shaped face toward her.
She stared into Jugs’s brilliant green eyes.
“…You wanted him to stay…He likes me…I like him…” Slowly, Jugs’s eyelids closed.
Nela petted his winter-thick coat. “Sure he likes you. Who wouldn’t? Cats rule, right?” She would be very alone now if it weren’t for Jugs. He was alive and warm, his presence comforting. Maybe some evening somewhere, she and Steve would sit with Jugs between them and they could talk of books and people and places, not of death and murder and anger.
Did everything hinge on the theft of the necklace? If not, the entire picture changed. If Steve was right, if the car fire was central, the first act in an unfolding drama of passion, then it mattered very much why the fire was set.
Had one of the men felt scorned by Anne Nesbitt and been determined to punish her? Perhaps there had been momentary pleasure after Anne left. Nothing else happened until the attraction between Hollis and Abby became obvious. The next vandalism destroyed the Indian baskets precious to Abby. The rest of the incidents caused difficulties for Hollis, his first directorship marred by the unsolved crimes, for Blythe as the foundation trustee, and for Abby.
As for the necklace, the intent might never have been money but a hope of implicating Abby. Marian Grant found the necklace in Abby’s office. Marian knew who had taken it. That knowledge cost Marian her life. But when the stolen jewelry—thanks to Nela—appeared on Blythe’s desk, the necklace ended up in Abby’s office. It had never mattered that the necklace was worth a quarter million dollars. Moreover, once again placing the necklace in Abby’s office indicated a depth of obsession. The thief should have been worried about the return of the necklace, wondering if someone was going to be a danger. Instead, the vendetta against Abby continued.
Nela shivered.
Jugs stirred, looked up. “…Afraid…”
Nela felt a catch in her throat. Yes, she was afraid. She saw faces, Cole Hamilton almost cherubic with his fringe of white curls, heavy, bull-like, massive Francis Garth with a dark commanding stare, lanky, professorial Peter Owens with his genial smile.
Which one?
Jugs gave an irritated chirp as Nela moved restlessly deep in the night. She was aware of him but only dimly. Distorted dreamlike images jostled in her sleep-drugged mind. But once, with sharp clarity, came the lucid thought: Grace warned me. Or were her words a threat? Sometimes it’s safer not to know.
Nela carried with her a sense of danger Thursday morning. The hallway seemed cold and remote with no hint of life or movement. She walked faster, but the quick clip of her shoes emphasized the silence. She pushed open Chloe’s door, turned on the light. The connecting door between Chloe’s office and Louise’s was open as usual, and a cheerful shaft of light spilled across the floor.
Nela crossed to the doorway.
“Good morning—” She spoke to emptiness. Louise’s coat hung from the coat tree. There were papers on her desk, but Louise wasn’t there.
Nela turned away. She checked her in-box. It was empty. Nela had completed the stack of applications Louise had given her yesterday. She glanced at the clock. A quarter after eight. Nela would have been glad to have tasks to do. It would be nice to be absorbed, pushing away worries about Haklo and the investigation. But surely Katie Dugan had realized that Nela wasn’t covering up for Chloe, that the necklace was only a part of a whole, and that none of the peculiar events at Haklo had anything to do with Nela or with Chloe.
Nela settled at the desk, waited. Time seemed to crawl. The minute hand moved with stately slowness. Another quarter hour passed. It was too early to make the morning round of mail deliveries. Finally, restless, Nela opened a side drawer, fished out a legal pad. She wrote a half-dozen statements in no particular order, fast. She liked, when writing a story, to pluck out the most interesting facts. Then with a quick scan, she’d rank them in order of importance and that’s how she’d structure the story.
In the adjoining office, Louise’s phone rang. And rang. Finally, it clicked off. Nela almost rose to go answer but she’d not been instructed to take Louise’s calls and she might well prefer to later pick up messages.
Nela returned to her fast-draw observations:
Blythe Webster’s active role as trustee began this summer.
Grace Webster resented her sister’s appointment as sole trustee yet she made it a habit to be present at Haklo when she was in Craddock.
The vandalism began after Erik Judd was fired.
Hollis Blair seemed to effortlessly charm women.
Francis Garth was a huge man with a strong personality. Whatever course he followed, he would be formidable, either as friend or adversary.
Nela tapped the pad with her pen. Did any of these observations point to the figure behind the events at Haklo?
Chloe’s phone rang.
Nela looked at caller ID: Craddock Police Department. Nela lifted the receiver. “Nela Farley.”
“Miss Farley, Detective Dugan. Do you have time to talk?”
“Yes.” She felt a twist of amusement. Nice of Dugan to ask. If she had questions, she could insist they be answered.
“I have a question I can’t ask Steve Flynn. Wrong gender.” Katie Dugan was brisk. “I know a bit more about you now. You’re a reporter, used to sizing people up. I want you to c
onsider three men: Francis Garth, Cole Hamilton, Peter Owens. You’re an outsider at Haklo. Your impressions will be fresh.”
Nela realized that she was being treated as an equal although she should always remember that Katie Dugan was a woman who could play many roles. “How can I help?”
“Francis Garth. Cole Hamilton. Peter Owens. Think sex.”
Nela got it at once. There is office decorum and there is the rest of life, from an encounter on a beach to a glance across a crowded room. Men are men and women are women and there are glances and smiles and eye contact that say more than words ever could. Not that the lines often didn’t blur. Hollis Blair could no more be around a woman without sending out a primal signal than he could forego using his diffident charm in any setting.
Katie nudged. “You’re sitting in a bar and Francis Garth’s on the next stool.”
Removing the men from Haklo, placing them in a dusky, crowded bar with music and movement and the splash of whisky over ice cubes, she saw them without the veneer of work. “Francis Garth.” Nela’s tone reflected her shift in perception. “Magnetic. Powerful. Definitely a man who notices women.” She felt a flicker of surprise as she continued. “Cole Hamilton may have the aura of a kindly older man, but he’s very aware of women.” As Steve had observed, Cole Hamilton was old, but he wasn’t dead. “Peter Owens has that tweedy, professorial aura, but he’s very masculine. Any one of them could be sexually on the prowl.”
Mim looked up from the page layout on her monitor, gray eyes inquiring. She was to Steve unchanged and unchanging, a rock in his life, her short-cut white hair making her thin, intelligent face look young and vibrant. She had the air of a sprinter ready for the gun, poised, ready to go. She never wasted words, suffered fools impatiently, incompetence never.
Steve propped against the edge of her desk. “You know everybody in town.” He grinned. “If I were a cub, you’d snap, ‘Don’t tell me something I already know.’ ”
