“Because the police are treating your father’s murder as just any other case,” Stella answered in her haughty manner. “He deserves better.”
“Some people may think he already got what he deserved.” His words held weariness and pain.
I could hear Stella sputtering, groping for words. “How dare you say that?”
“Get off your high horse, Mother. It’s me you’re talking to, not a campaign crowd. You know Dad climbed to the top on a lot of people’s backs. He was self-centered and ruthless.”
“Have you no respect for your father’s memory?” Stella said in a shrill tone.
“You’re planning to make a public spectacle of his funeral,” Sidney replied, as if speaking were an effort. “He was just a man, for God’s sake, a flawed man, not a saint.”
“He was a great man, and he would have been greater—” Stella’s voice broke with a sob “—if someone hadn’t cut him down on his rise to the top.”
“Why don’t we have a private family service?” Sidney had lowered his voice and added persuasion. “It will be easier on all of us, especially Brianna. Her doctor has sedated her, she’s so upset.”
“Death is a fact of life Brianna must learn to face,” Stella said. “And your father had so many people who loved him, not allowing them to pay their final respects would be cruel.”
“Cruel? Isn’t what you’re doing to your granddaughter cruel?”
“You coddle that child, Sidney. As much as Carlton adored her, you let her stay away from him too often in his last days. How could you?”
Sidney made a noise of obvious disgust, and footsteps stomped off the terrace and up the path toward the house next door.
I heard the house door off the terrace open and close, and, after waiting a moment for the coast to clear, I made my way out of the arbor back to where my car was parked in Sidney’s driveway. I was opening my door when a voice interrupted.
“What the hell are you doing in my yard?” Sidney, eyes blazing, strode toward me.
I shut the door and turned to meet him. “Your mother hired me to investigate your father’s murder.”
“Not at my house you don’t. My wife and daughter are upset enough without your bothering them.”
“I’m just leaving.”
“Don’t come back, or I’ll get a restraining order.”
Sidney’s reaction, both earlier on the terrace and now, wasn’t what I’d expected. His face was flushed, his respiration ragged and his fists clenched. A hint of fear flashed along with the anger in his eyes. And beneath the fear and rage lurked that haunted look I’d seen too often in survivors when death has taken someone close by surprise.
“What are you afraid I’ll find?” I asked, making a stab in the dark.
He struggled visibly for self-control, and when he finally spoke, his voice was calmer. “There’s nothing to find. If you really want to know what happened to my father, you’re wasting your time—and my mother’s money—here.”
“You didn’t see anyone or anything out of the ordinary yesterday morning?”
“My father lying dead in his own backyard was extraordinary enough.”
“Before that?”
“I was working. I had my back to the break in the hedge. I wasn’t even aware George Ulrich had come and gone until Mother told me.”
Sidney protested too much. He apparently held secrets he didn’t want uncovered, but I’d need more digging to determine whether what he was concealing involved his father’s murder or merely the kind of private idiosyncrasies that all families guarded. I climbed into my car and drove away. In the rearview mirror, I saw Sidney, hands on his hips, watching, until I pulled onto the street.
I considered stopping by the hospital to check on Mother, but I might not be lucky enough to find her sleeping this time. My emotions were raw from Seton Fellows’s revelations, and I didn’t know how I’d react to her with my present knowledge. I rationalized that I didn’t want to cause her distress that might impede her recovery. I wanted to share what I’d learned from Seton with Bill—we’d been too involved with our current case for me to bring it up before now—and hear his advice in hopes it would keep me from making my relationship with Mother worse than it already was.
But concern for her was only half the issue. The rest of the story was that I was flat-out chicken. Almost fifty, I still felt like a child, caught with my hand in the cookie jar, whenever I was with my mother.
Darcy had already gone home when I reached the office, but Bill was waiting with a huge wicker picnic basket in the middle of his desk. Its presence reminded me that I’d forgotten to eat lunch.
“How come every time we’re together, there’s food involved?” I asked.
He lifted his eyebrows and threw me the grin that never failed to make my knees weak. “Because I know your weakness?”
“Every man on the street knows my weakness. All he has to do is look at the size of my hips.”
“You have delectable hips, Margaret, and I’ll punch the next guy I catch looking at them.”
“My hero,” I said with an exaggerated sigh, and batted my eyelashes.
“You talking about me or a sandwich?”
“See, it’s always about food.”
“But food is so sensual.” His grin widened.
“Not the kind in my refrigerator.”
“That’s not food. That’s desperation.”
“Speaking of desperation, what’s in the basket? I’m starving.”
“I thought you were worried about your hips.”
“For now, they’re on their own. Are we eating here?”
He shook his head. “The weather’s perfect to enjoy one of the perks of this office.”
“The rooftop deck?”
“Lead the way. I’ll follow with the food.”
I went into the hall to an outer door that opened to an exterior staircase. The owners of the bookstore below had originally constructed the rooftop deck in hopes customers would take their books and coffee up to enjoy the view. Newcomers to Florida, they hadn’t realized that most days the deck would be too hot, too cold, too windy or too bug-infested to enjoy. Once they’d caught on, they’d closed off the ground-level stairs. Now the deck was accessible only from the second floor. And today was one of a handful out of the year that the climate favored use of the rooftop patio with its unique view of the bay and the setting sun.
The bookstore folks had left the wrought-iron tables and chairs and planters filled with palms and exotic shrubs, and the roof provided a perfect oasis for a sunset picnic, if you ignored the occasional gasoline fumes that wafted on the updraft.
“The reason our being together usually involves food,” Bill said, as he spread a supper of his famous chicken salad with white grapes and almonds, a soft, Italian herb bread, and a chilled Riesling, “is that the only times we get together is over meals. As soon as the business gets on its feet, we’ll pick and choose our cases more carefully, so we’ll have more free time.”
With two murders under investigation, free time was an alien concept. I took a sip of wine. “I spoke with Elaine this morning—”
He raised his hand and cut me off, firmly but gently. “Enjoy your meal. We’ll talk about the case later.”
But later, we talked about Mother. I related to Bill what Dr. Fellows had told me about her insecurities and her jealousy of me. Sharing my distress with someone I trusted, someone who understood me, felt good.
“So,” I said after I’d finished my story, “what do I do now?”
He swirled his wine in his glass and thought for a moment. “Nothing’s changed with your mother, except her state of health. She apparently feels the same as she always has about you. But that’s her problem, not yours.”
“Of course it’s my problem!”
He smiled and squeezed my hand across the table. “You’re not the cause of the problem. The cause lies within Priscilla. But you can choose how you react to her insecurities.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t take her attitude personally.”
“But she’s my mother!” If he’d been any other man, I would have dismissed his advice as callous, but Bill understood human behavior and motivations better than most psychiatrists, so I didn’t blow off his words. With a friend like Bill, I didn’t need a therapist, not if I paid attention.
“Her lack of affection and approval is tragic,” he said, “but it’s also a fact you’ve lived with all your life. In that sense, nothing’s new. Except that now you’re relieved of the burden of believing that such a lack is your fault. Treat her with respect, and even pity, but don’t let her drag you down.”
I took another drink of wine. “That’s easier said than done.”
“I know. Because she’s your mother, and mothers are supposed to love their children. But you’ve worked enough abuse cases to know better. Did the children we rescued deserve what their mothers did to them?”
“Of course not.”
“I rest my case.”
Intellectually, I knew Bill was right, but comprehending that fact emotionally was tougher. My inner child still longed for a mommy who loved me without reservation. The adult me was thankful for Bill, whose love was unconditional. Even on my worst days, he’d been there for me. Maybe in the cosmic scheme of things, he was in my life to make up for what I’d missed. Whatever the reason, I was lucky to have him.
“Mother insisted before Christmas that she didn’t want to see me again. That gives me an out to avoid her.”
Bill nodded. “But would avoiding her make you happy?”
“On one level.” I could never lie to Bill, not only because I loved him, but also because he’d know I wasn’t being honest. “Ignoring a problem is always a seductive choice. But she is my mother, and Caroline and I are all she has.”
“You’ll make the right decision. Just don’t let her manipulate you with guilt. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
I sank back in my chair and watched the last remnants of spectacular colors play across the western horizon. Bill pulled his chair beside mine and slid his arm around my shoulders. The wine was working the kinks out of my muscles, and my eyelids were drooping when Bill’s cell phone rang, spoiling the mood.
“That,” I said with a scowl, “is why I don’t want one of those damned things. Don’t answer it.”
He pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the caller ID. “It’s Adler.”
Curiosity trumped my irritation. “Go ahead, see what he wants.”
Bill took the call, spoke a few words and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “He has the autopsy results on Carlton Branigan and says he’ll fill us in, if we want to come over for coffee.”
“That’ll work. We can all share what we learned today.”
“And Sharon baked a cake.”
I scowled and quoted one of Estelle’s favorite Bible verses. “‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ And he always does—and plants a few pounds on my butt while he’s back there.”
Bill pulled me to him and kissed me. “You’ve been paranoid about your weight ever since the diet clinic murders. But you mustn’t worry. You’re perfect, just the way you are.”
I leaned back in his arms and grinned. “Then let us eat cake.”
CHAPTER 11
Adler lived in a southside Pelican Bay neighborhood in a gray clapboard house with black shutters and a wide front porch that stretched across the front like open arms. The porch light illuminated rocking chairs, an old-fashioned swing, pots of red geraniums and a toddler-size tricycle. Although the place was small—most cops couldn’t afford bigger— Adler and Sharon had done the renovating themselves and created an updated, cozy home.
Bill parked his new SUV, what I called his Macho Machine, at the front curb and looked around through the gathering twilight.
“This is a great neighborhood,” he said. “How’d you like to live here?”
Having visited the Adlers often, I was familiar with the area. “Lots of families with young children. It might be too noisy for a couple of old fogies like us.”
Bill laughed. “You’re barely forty-nine. In Florida, you’re not an old fogy until at least eighty-five.”
“But, you have to admit, we are accustomed to our peace and quiet.”
But only in our off-hours. Between us, we’d witnessed too much death, destruction and pain, with Deirdre Fisk and Carlton Branigan and the ripple effect of their murders on their families only the latest examples. Maybe that’s why I felt so old.
And maybe that’s why living in a neighborhood filled with young couples and children would be good for me. I’d promised myself when I’d agreed to marry Bill that I’d learn to lighten up. I decided to rethink my reservations about living in a subdivision. Surrounding myself with young lives and laughter might be a good start to adjusting my attitude.
“It wouldn’t hurt to check with a real-estate agent and find out what’s available,” I said.
He glanced at me in surprise. “You’re serious?”
“We have to live somewhere. This neighborhood is close to the office and the marina.”
I waited for the wave of panic that usually followed any thought of permanently blending my life with Bill’s, but tonight it didn’t come.
I did, however, jump in alarm when someone rapped on my window. Adler was standing beside the SUV, so I opened the door.
“You two coming in?” he asked, “or were you planning to sit here and neck like a couple of teenagers?”
“Not with an audience.” Bill climbed out, shut the door and, after I climbed out, keyed the lock. “That spoils the fun.”
We followed Adler up the walk, and Sharon, petite with green eyes and dark brown hair, met us at the door with a welcoming smile.
“Coffee’s almost ready,” she said. “Come into the kitchen.”
The Adlers had taken out a wall between two rooms at the back of the house, so their kitchen and family room flowed into one large space that opened onto the backyard through a wall of French doors. A pine table centered the eat-in kitchen that smelled of oranges, the same aroma that used to fill the air from the juice concentrate processing plant in Dunedin before the citrus groves’ demise.
Bill and I settled at the table across from Adler, and Sharon served mugs of coffee and thick slices of glazed orange-chiffon cake before slipping away to check on Jessica, asleep in the nursery.
Between bites of cake that melted in my mouth, I told Adler and Bill about my visit with Elaine Fisk and checking out her alibi.
“I doubt our killer could have been Elaine, or George Ulrich,” Adler said. “Not after the autopsy results.”
“Why not?” Bill asked.
“Doc found the victim’s hyoid cartilage and larynx completely shattered. From the angle of the ligature marks on his throat, she thinks someone close to Branigan’s height must have strangled him.”
“What if he was knocked to his knees?” I asked.
Adler shook his head. “I asked the same question. Doc pointed out that, if he’d fallen to the ground during a struggle, Branigan’s bare knees would have been more abraded. From the state of his skin and the lack of bleeding on his legs, she thinks he was dead before he hit the ground.”
“Stella Branigan’s a tall woman,” I said.
“But she was in her room until minutes before finding the body,” Adler said. “Porter grilled the butler hard. Madison insists he took the wife coffee right after Ulrich left. And a cleaning lady, working upstairs, corroborates that Mrs. Branigan was in her room the entire time she said she was. So she couldn’t have been our killer.”
“Besides,” Bill added, “if Stella’s the killer, why would she hire us? She’s aware that we know what we’re doing and would collar her eventually.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But what about Sidney? He’s tall enough, and he acts as if he’s hiding something.”
“We checked his hands,” Adler said. “They’re
clean. If he’s our perp, he would have had to have worn gloves to the arbor, intending to kill his father with the vine, then returned home and ditched the gloves—and changed his bloody clothes—before responding to his mother’s call. But I haven’t been able to come up with a motive for Sidney. Therefore, no compelling reason for a search warrant.”
“Something’s not right in that family,” I said. “Sidney’s housekeeper told me his nine-year-old daughter has refused to visit her grandparents recently. What kid that age doesn’t like her grandparents?”
“Stella Branigan isn’t your typical warm and cuddly grandma,” Adler said.
Bill caught my eye across the table. “Or maybe Grandpa was too warm and cuddly.”
I nodded. “That would fit, especially if he’s the sexual predator we’re looking for. Brianna’s the same age and appearance as the other victims. I brought copies of the cold cases back from Tampa. Bill and I will look through them tonight to see what else we can find.”
“Any chance you could question Brianna about her grandfather?” Bill asked Adler.
“Not without one of her parents present,” he said.
“I don’t think Sidney would agree.” No longer a cop, however, I was under no such restriction. “Maybe I can talk with her.”
“Without the parents?” Adler said.
“I can try. From what I overheard Sidney saying today, I doubt Brianna will be at the funeral. He said it would be too stressful for her. Maybe the housekeeper will let me talk to the girl while the parents are at the reception after the services. Has Doc released Branigan’s body?”
Adler nodded. “Funeral’s scheduled for day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll see what I can do. What about physical evidence? Did the techs find anything?”
Alder nodded. “Fibers in the vine around the vic’s neck. They traced them to garden gloves sold by the hundreds at Home Depot. No matching gloves found on the property.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. And the ballistics report is in on the Fisk bullet. No match in the system.”
Bill finished his coffee and put down his mug. “Branigan’s aide gave me the names of a few possible suspects. Top of the list is a radical feminist in Belleair, who’s sent death threats to Branigan because of his conservative voting record. Also, a man in Safety Harbor, who claims he lost his job as the result of some environmental legislation Branigan sponsored, and an Hispanic day laborer, angry over the senator’s vote on a bill that adversely affected migrant workers.”
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