Bitter End (Seychelle Sullivan #3)

by Kling, Christine

  Molly took a step toward Janet, pushing her son behind her. “The difference was, Janet, I loved him. Yeah, the sex with you was good at first, and that was why he left. But when he realized who you really were, that you were empty inside, he wanted out. He told me so not too long before he died.”

  I took a couple more steps to my right, circling around Janet, who was so focused on spewing her hatred for Molly and Zale, she didn’t even notice me.

  “You liar! Nicky never said no such thing,” Janet screamed.

  I wanted to get closer, close enough to use one of the fancy Aikido moves that B. J. had taught me to bat the weapon out of your attacker’s hand. But when I saw the change in Janet’s face, when I saw that perfect porcelain skin pull back into that snarl, teeth bared and the gun coming up, I knew she was going to shoot.

  I didn’t even think—I just leaped and tackled her. The gun went off and then clattered to the terrazzo when we landed in a heap next to the coffee table. I couldn’t see if anyone had been hit because Janet and I were on the floor in what can only be described as a real catfight. I was used to fighting my brothers, who punched and kicked and struggled to get me into wrestling holds. And for the past several years I had been participating in the classic artful moves of Aikido fighting on the mats at the dojo. I’d never before fought against someone who bit and scratched and pulled hair and head-butted, all the while screaming at the top of her lungs.

  We rolled around on the floor knocking over furniture and breaking lamps. She yanked so hard on my hair that I thought I was going to black out, and then her fingernails dug into my shoulder where the wet suit I was wearing hung too loose. She ripped at my skin. She was trying without much effect to bite me through the wet suit, and then I was doing my best to keep those frigging teeth away from my face. She wrapped her fingers in the gold chain around my neck, tightening it, trying to strangle me until, with a pop, the chain broke and the dolphin charm flew across the floor. That was it. That was when I decided I’d had enough. I saw my opening and went for it.

  I pulled back my fist and nailed her jaw with every ounce of weight I could get behind it. We’d just rolled up onto our knees, face to face, and when I punched her, she fell on her side on the terrazzo floor. I crawled on top of her back, straddling her, and pulled her arms back and up until she squeaked a little, so I knew she wasn’t unconscious. I lifted my head fast, trying to flip all the hair out of my eyes to see what was going on in the rest of the room.

  “Is everybody okay?” I asked just as Detectives Mabry and Amoretti came through the front door, guns drawn.

  XXIX

  The cops seemed to outnumber us within a matter of seconds. I climbed off Janet, a uniformed officer got cuffs on her, and she was gone, out the front door of Molly’s house. Thankfully, the one shot Janet fired had merely cut a hole in one of Molly’s original oil paintings on the wall. It turned out that Jeannie, who had been surprisingly quiet while Janet was spitting her vile stuff at us, had actually reached into her pocket under that horse blanket of hers and pushed redial on her cell phone.

  “Since Clay was the last one I called—right after you called from Homestead,” she said, “I knew it would dial him.”

  “Clay?” I asked.

  She looked over at Detective Mabry and stuck her chin out. “That one. Detective Mabry,” but she wasn’t quite able to pull it off without a little smile.

  I’m certain I was standing there with my jaw dragging on Molly’s terrazzo floors when Detective Amoretti asked Zale about the case he was holding.

  “It was my dad’s. It was on his boat, the Mykonos.”

  “Well, I guess that means it’s yours now, son. What’s in it?”

  “I don’t know.” Zale hugged the case tighter to him.

  “Do you want to tell us about what’s happened here?” Mabry asked.

  I gave him a grateful look. He understood that we shouldn’t push Zale right now. He’d give up the case when he was ready. Jeannie jumped up and said she’d make some tea, and Molly was walking around her living room, trying to push the furniture back into place. Detective Amoretti took her arm and asked her to sit.

  “Do you guys mind if Zale and I clean up a little before we get into this long story? This wet suit is giving me the worst goddamn case of chafe you’ve ever seen.” While Jeannie made the tea, Molly found me an extra-large T-shirt and a pair of overalls she used for painting, and Zale and I retreated to the two bathrooms for a little desalting. When I came out ten minutes later combing my wet hair, Jeannie and Detective Mabry were sitting next to each other on Molly’s dining room chairs chatting and laughing as though they were on a date. Molly and Zale came out of his room, and Detective Amoretti took up his usual position leaning against the wall, watching. A uniformed officer stood by the door, his pad at the ready, taking notes.

  Through the front door, I could see the sky growing a pale pink. There were still clouds out there, but they were cumulous now, bulbous and blue, blowing fast across the horizon. The old Florida houses like Molly’s were built without heat or air, and though her parents had installed air conditioning, they’d never added heat. Someone had started a fire in the fireplace, and it was making a big difference in the temperature in the room.

  “Have a seat, everybody,” Mabry said. “My partner’s already spoken to Ms. Pontus while you were in the shower and taken her statement as to what occurred here between the time Ms. Black brought her home from the courthouse and when we arrived. Now, Ms. Sullivan, if you please.”

  “First, I don’t get it. What was Janet doing here?”

  Molly spoke first. “She was really acting crazy when she came to the door. She said she’d searched their whole house. Torn everything apart. She said there was no way it was over there, so it had to be here in my house. She said the cops were looking for her brother, and he wasn’t answering his phone, and somehow all of that had gotten mixed up in her head to mean it was my fault. Everything that was happening to her was my fault, she said. She was just about to have me start tearing my house apart, when you guys showed up.”

  “Molly,” I said, “you tried to tell us what a monster Janet was and we didn’t believe you. I’m sorry about that. She was a hell of an actress. Janet played the part of a normal human being so well. She fooled me.”

  “Me, too,” Jeannie said. “And not many people manage that.”

  So then it was my turn. I had a feeling they already knew what had happened to Richard Hunter and his two crew members, but I told the story and they took their notes. I noticed that Zale no longer had the line tied to his wrist, but he sat with the case on his lap, fingering the keyholes. Some details of the story—details Zale had already heard once and that I didn’t think the kid needed to hear again—I omitted. Maybe it was history that explained who these Hunters were, but I decided to keep my mouth shut about it for now. Besides, I didn’t have the stomach for it. So, I told them how Richard had kept asking us about “it,” and we assumed “it” was in the case, but we really had no idea what “it” was. And I told them how they’d died, that we hadn’t seen or heard anything, and how Zale had sailed us home. When I’d run out of story, everyone turned to Zale.

  “Well, son,” Mabry said. “Are you ready to see what it was your daddy wanted you to see?”

  Zale nodded and held the case out to Detective Amoretti. He set it on the dining table, produced a set of picklocks out of his pocket, and opened the case in seconds. Amoretti lifted out a simple manila folder and opened it. “Interesting,” he said, handing the open folder to Molly. Zale craned his neck and read over her shoulder.

  After a few seconds’ reading, she looked up from the document and stared out through the front windows. “It’s a third will?” she asked.

  “Looks like it,” Amoretti said.

  Molly flipped to the back of the document. “It’s signed by Nick and witnessed by Leon Quinn. Why wouldn’t he have said anything about this? He never told me.”

  Mabry motione
d for the uniformed officer, and when he came, Mabry spoke at length in his ear. The officer then left through the front door and went out to the car.

  “He may be long gone, but we would like to have a talk with Mr. Quinn, it appears.”

  “That’s just reminded me of something Richard said yesterday. When he was trying to get Zale to tell him where it was, he said, ‘Nick told Quinn that the kid knew where it was.’ How would Richard know that unless Quinn told him?”

  “Or told Janet,” Mabry said. “I think it’s likely Quinn was involved with the boss’s wife. He probably thought he’d seduced her.”

  “So you’re saying Nick rewrote his will to make Janet happy, then secretly had Quinn prepare a third will that made the second one null and void?”

  “Apparently that was his plan,” Mabry said. “Only Quinn then went and spilled the beans to Janet, setting the gears in motion that resulted in Nick’s murder.”

  “And once Nick was dead, the only person who knew about the will besides Quinn and the Hunters—was Zale.”

  The front door opened and the uniformed policeman poked his head in. Bright sunshine was shining on the cars at the curb, and a group of people was standing behind the cop.

  “Detectives, there are several individuals out here who insist on talking to these folks. They say they’re family.” Molly had been moving her head from side to side, trying to see who was standing outside her door. Suddenly she called out, “Gramma Josie?”

  B. J. accompanied Josie into the house, and behind them came my brother, Pit. We all hugged and carried on while the cops stood off to one side and watched, their hands scratching and fidgeting as though this display of affection made them nervous.

  B. J. explained that he had been over at my cottage taking care of Abaco and waiting for me to return home when Pit arrived. The two of them were there at my cottage at something like two in the morning when Gramma Josie called, saying she’d had a dream about her great-grandson and needed to come to Fort Lauderdale.

  “Pit and I got in my truck and went out to pick her up. We didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “She insisted we drive her here, and here you all are.”

  Pit and Molly were smiling shyly and talking, saying the “Hello, gee, you sure look good” stuff that people say when they haven’t seen or spoken to each other in years. It sure looked like my brother was having an easier time of it than I had.

  The detectives told us that they were leaving then, that they would probably be calling on us again for more statements and certainly later for testimony, but for now, they knew we needed some quiet time with family. Detective Mabry walked over and whispered something to Jeannie, and though it was hard to see past the two of them standing side by side, from the way he jumped a little and grinned at her, I swear, I think she grabbed his ass.

  As all the adults hovered around the door, I helped Josie to a chair. I could have sworn she was staring at Zale across the room, sitting at the dining room table, but I didn’t think she could really see that well. Her interest in the boy, though, made me look, and now that I had, I realized he was reading some other papers from his father’s case. In one hand he held a stapled sheaf of papers that had been inside a manila envelope, and in the other hand he had what looked like a letter. He turned from the letter to the group of adults, and I realized he was staring at my brother.

  “Zale,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  Molly looked at her son. “Honey? What is it?”

  Pit walked over to the boy. “Hey, man, I hear you pulled off quite a feat of sailing skill last night.”

  Zale handed him the letter. Pit cocked his head, shrugged his shoulders, and started to read. As he read, he reached out for a dining room chair without taking his eyes off the page and lowered himself into the chair. When he got to the end of the document, he looked up at Molly.

  Molly said, “Would somebody tell me what’s going on here?”

  Gramma Josie chuckled as though she already knew.

  Molly glanced at Josie, puzzled, then said, “Pit, what is that?”

  Pit looked back down at the document in his hand and started to read.

  Dear son,

  If you are reading this, it means I am gone. I want you to know how much I love you and how proud I am to be your father. You made me a better man than I ever would have been without you. I always told you I would never lie to you, so there is a final truth I want you to know.

  Last year when you had your physical for the International Sailing Association, I asked our doctor to run some other tests. The results of those tests are in the report enclosed with this letter. I hope you will always consider me your true father, but the tests confirmed something I had suspected for several years. You have another father. Your mother was in love with another man when I first met her. I believe he is your biological father. Now that I am gone, the truth will come out, and I wanted you to learn about this from me.

  Some people will remember me as a real son of a bitch, but others have always seen me as a generous man. I want you to be happy, son, so always look on my death as a time not when you a lost a father, but when you gained a new one.

  Love always,

  Dad

  When Pit finished reading the letter, everyone in the room turned to look at Molly. She stood with her head lowered, staring down at her hands, rubbing the palm of one hand as though there were some sort of stain she could rub off.

  “Mom?” Zale said. “Is that true?”

  When she did look up finally, she didn’t look at her son or at my brother. She looked at me.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s true. When I found out I was pregnant, I panicked. Pit,” she said, turning to face him. “You weren’t ready to settle down with a baby and a wife. You’re too much of a free spirit. It would have killed you.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but stopped. I knew it was true, and I think my brother was too honest with himself to say otherwise.

  “Nick had been giving me the hard press for weeks,” Molly said. “He knew I was going with Pit, but he always used to say I was the girl he was going to marry. So I went out with him once and we eloped the next day. I’m sorry about the lies. I’m sorry about all the hurt I caused. But I was young, and I did what I thought was best.”

  Pit dropped the letter and turned to Zale. “Hey, I don’t know what to say. That’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

  Zale nodded, looking at my brother as though afraid of what would come next.

  “You’ve just lost your dad, and I know that still hurts. And I know that I couldn’t ever presume to take Nick’s place in your heart or in your life. But I just found out I’ve got a son.” He paused at hearing the words come out of his mouth. “I’ve got a son.”

  It was impossible to say which one of them moved first, they just came together and hugged, my brother and his son, both of them laughing and crying at the same time.

  I don’t think anyone else noticed the tears on Molly’s cheeks.

  I stood up and crossed the room and took my friend in my arms. “I’m so sorry for all those years lost,” I whispered.

  “Me, too,” she said.

  We didn’t have to say the rest of it. It was as though some muscle in my body that had been holding tight in a cramp for thirteen years just let go.

  We looked across the room at Pit and Zale standing next to each other talking. “Look at them,” I said to her, knowing that she would know I was talking about the resemblance. “How did we not see it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I figured Nick knew.” Maybe if I had seen the kid as a baby and looked at his Greek father and part-Seminole mother, I would have realized this fair-haired boy was something strange. But meeting him as I had, and under these circumstances, I never guessed. Maybe that had been part of Molly’s plan.

  Jeannie was sitting on the couch, and she picked up the will that was resting on the coffee table. “Hey, Molly,” she said as she read down the document. “This will is
different than the first one Nick wrote right after your divorce. Significantly different.”

  “Really?” Molly said, though she didn’t sound all that interested.

  “Yeah, really. Like, for example, you and your son inherit Pontus jointly, and you are expected to run the company.”

  “What?”

  “Yup, says so right here.”

  “No!” Molly said, and everyone laughed.

  B. J. said, “You must be the only person in history who ever acted like that when told they were about to inherit millions.” B. J. turned to me and draped his arm across my shoulders. “I knew I liked this friend of yours.”

  “But I’m not a businessperson,” Molly said.

  Zale laughed. “Mom, you sound like me when I complained that I was just a kid. It’s like Seychelle told me. We’ll hire people to do that.”

  After that, B. J. and Molly went into the kitchen to make pancakes for everyone. I volunteered to go in B. J.’s place, but he made some comment about everybody having lived through enough life-threatening situations for one day, and he shooed me away.

  When we’d eaten our fill, Gramma Josie called out my name and motioned for me to go sit next to her. I sat in the chair Molly had just vacated.

  “What is it, Gramma Josie?”

  “I need to show you something. You brother, too. You drive.”

  “I can’t right this minute, Gramma Josie. I don’t have my car here.”

  “I do,” Jeannie said, and given the way she was smirking at B. J., I had the feeling this was something the two of them had planned. In the end, everybody wanted to go see what Gramma Josie wanted to show Pit and me, and we all piled into Jeannie’s minivan.