His smile slid away. “You heard the man at dinner last night. He knows I’ll lay it out straight. I do, you know. He’s fired me twice, but he always hires me back. I’m the only son of a bitch Chase knows who doesn’t stand at attention when he comes into the room.”
“But you’d rather be in Atlanta.” I waved away a wasp, tossed the crushed honeysuckle onto the grass.
“God, yes.” He twirled the towel into a taut line and snapped it twice. “Jesus, this is boring. No offense. But I want to be in the newsroom. I want to know what’s going on. And this goddamned island—we’re out here like it’s a century ago. What’s wrong with him? Maybe he’s getting old.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not it. But, for God’s sake, anything could happen in Russia. The damn Libyans could knock down another plane. Hell, we don’t know what’s happening! For a damn week! And those interest payments come due in October. What’s that? Five weeks? And here we sit twiddling our thumbs on this godforsaken island. So he says everything’s okay—why doesn’t he tell us what’s going on? The rumors out in the industry are bad.” He leaned back, visibly trying to relax. “But I’m not in charge.”
“When you are …”
“When I am? Lady, I’m going to bite and scratch and gouge and fight and someday Prescott Communications will be the biggest media outfit in the world. In the whole damned world.”
I knew as I looked at his glittering green eyes that the day he took over couldn’t possibly come, as far as he was concerned, soon enough.
Caesar said it best: “Yond Cassius had a lean and hungry look…”
I was on my way to the tennis courts, hoping to find Miranda, when I took a detour.
The acrid, unmistakable scent of burning drew me to the incinerator. I touched the concrete blocks lightly. They were still warm, though no smoke twined from the vents.
It was the first home incinerator I’d been around in forty years. Believe it or not, home incinerators were a given in Southern California not so long ago. A small shovel hung from a hook on one side, along with gloves. I slipped on the gloves and opened the door. I used the shovel to explore.
Books are hard to burn, as Nazis and others of their ilk have discovered through the years.
This book was blackened and smoldering. Still, it was far from destroyed. I held in my hand the missing copy of The Man Who Picks Presidents. I carefully sprinkled it with some sandy dirt, to extinguish even a lingering spark. Then I went to the trouble to empty out all the ashes to see if there was anything else not customarily consigned to incinerators.
All I got for my trouble was an ash in my right eye and a smear of carbon on my walking shorts.
I took the charred book back to my room. There I wrapped it in a quart-size plastic bag (I carry them when traveling for soiled clothing) and tucked it in the middle of the folder stack.
I brushed away most of the cinder smear on my shorts and hurried back outside, my goal again the tennis courts.
Why try to burn Chase’s biography?
Obviously, I could easily obtain a copy when back on the mainland. And, in fact, thanks to Burton Andrews, I’d have the book in hand by Monday afternoon.
Panic.
Whatever I’d sensed late last night when I called out and no one answered, it certainly hadn’t been panic. No, taking that book to the incinerator was not the point of extinguishing the lights.
I turned up the path to the tennis courts, brushing back some low-lying weeping willow fronds. But when I reached the courts, I was disappointed not to see Chase’s young wife. Trevor Dunnaway was zipping up his racket. He looked irritated.
“Where’s Miranda?”
“Decided she’d had enough. Quit in the middle of the set.” He must have realized he sounded pettish. He managed a smile and gestured toward a lavish wet bar beneath a canopy. “It is damned hot. Join me in a drink? Got ice out here and everything. Whiskey, beer, soda.”
“Love to.” Trevor was on my interview list, of course. Since he was a bird in hand, I’d defer my search for Miranda.
I took plain seltzer. Trevor uncapped a bottle of Dos Equis XXs. “Good and cold,” he said approvingly. He pulled two director’s chairs deeper into the shade for us. As we settled back, he looked toward the courts. “God, it’s fun to play on clay. But they take a lot of work.” With elegant timing, the court sprinklers came on at that moment. The aromatic smell of water hitting dry soil drifted to us. “Automatic, see,” he explained admiringly. “Kind of an electric eye in reverse. As long as someone’s playing, the water stays off. When there isn’t any movement for a set period, the sprinklers come on for a while and pretty soon the court’s perfect for the next game. Isn’t that a hell of a deal?” He tilted the dark brown bottle and drank greedily.
He was certainly at home in this resort setting. As if to the manor born. But he hadn’t been. Trevor was that strange hybrid, a middle-class origin but an upper-middle-class background. Both parents were schoolteachers who immigrated to the U.S. from England. Trevor was an only child. They gave him every advantage. Private schools. Music lessons. Good clothes. But the money only stretched so far. He couldn’t afford skiing over spring break or jaunts to Europe or the expensive summer camps that cater to the rich. But Trevor brilliantly parlayed good looks and charm and an undeniable British accent, so appreciated by upper-middle-class Americans, into invitations to accompany his classmates’ families on vacations: snorkeling in Greece, pyramid climbing in Mexico, salmon fishing in Alaska. And now, as a corporate attorney, he enjoyed a top income and, as always, excelled at eliciting invitations to the mansions and estates of the wealthy.
“Clever,” I agreed, watching the drops of water striking the clay. “When a man is rich enough, there’s no limit to what he can afford. So you must be complimented that a man who could have any lawyer in America as his corporate counsel should choose you.”
His blond brows rose in surprise. “Never thought about it. Damn nice thing for you to say. But I don’t know if I can lay it to legal brilliance.” His smile was disarming. “Fact of the matter, got to know Chase at the club. Golf, you know. Damn fine player.”
“As I’m sure you are.” I lifted my glass. The seltzer was tart and refreshing.
“Fair, fair. Good enough, I suppose.” He finished off the beer. His open face, still flushed from the tennis, was now relaxed and good-humored, that of an untroubled man on a perfect holiday. He grinned. “More to the point, fellows like Chase want to have a little bet on each hole. I never win too often.”
I was seeing a superb performance. There was more to this man than amiable bonhomie, but he’d had years of practice at providing what he sensed his audience wanted. One session with me wasn’t going to prick that facade, let alone destroy it.
I could try.
“What happens to Chase’s estate when he dies?”
The easy look fled. He sat up straighter and looked at me sharply. He was unsmiling. He no longer looked like a lawyer on a holiday. He looked like a lawyer. “Why do you ask that? That has nothing to do with the book you’re researching.”
“No, perhaps not. Let’s say I’m interested because the provisions of a will reveal an enormous amount about the relationship of the testator with the legatees.” I met his gaze confidently.
“But this isn’t that kind of biography, is it? This is going to be positive, isn’t it?”
“Excuse me?” He couldn’t have missed the frost in my voice.
It didn’t bother him a whit. He compounded the insult. “Look, he’s hiring you to write him up. Probably paying a good bit—”
“That’s not the way it works, Trevor. I’ve agreed to write a biography. In fact, I’ve already had expressions of interest from several publishers. My agent will probably have an auction. But the point is: I write what I find. If it’s positive, so be it. If it isn’t … I’m no hired hand. Which brings me back to my original question: What happens to Chase’s estate—”
That’s when the shots rang out.
/>
6
It galls me to admit it, but I was the last to reach the point. Age can be mastered to a great extent, but my seven-minute-mile days are long since past. Sometimes I console myself that not many women my age still jog, even if at the pace of a summer-somnolent armadillo. And sometimes I just swear bitterly and try to ignore the ache in my right knee and the stitch in my side.
I’ll never forget the sight that met my eyes.
Everyone known to be on the island was there except for the housekeeper and the maid.
It was easy to see what had happened.
The force of the shots had flung the easel onto the stone floor. Drawing the eye at once and irresistibly were the ragged-edged bullet holes—three of them—almost at the midpoint of the canvas. At the height of the artist’s head.
The surface of the stone floor told its story, too. A long, scuffed swath through the drifted pine needles and live oak leaves marked where Chase had thrown himself down. He had scrabbled to safety behind the shed, his back to the sound. That desperate crablike scuttle had cost him. Blood streaked his elbows and knees; dirt stained his white shorts and polo shirt.
Miranda clung to one arm, murmuring his name over and over, tears coursing down her lovely face.
Chase ignored her. His chest heaved like that of a man who had run a long distance. His face was red and stricken. It was also implacably angry.
“Someone shot at me.”
Enrique shaded his eyes and looked out at the choppy water. “Hunters, sir. Poachers. The island’s posted, of course. But some people—”
“Hunters?” Trevor broke in, his blue eyes skeptical. “We’d have heard a boat. Chase, did you hear a boat? Did you hear anything? Crackling in the underbrush, footsteps? Hunters make noise.”
Chase jerked away from Miranda, too angry to be patient with her tears. He looked toward the dark mass of foliage. It appeared even darker and more somber and impenetrable from the brightness of the point with the open Atlantic on one side, the sound on the other.
“Nothing. Not a single sound.”
“But that means …” Miranda hiccuped and rubbed her reddened eyes, looking bereft and hopelessly childlike.
Chase looked at each face in turn, his eyes probing, challenging. “Yes, it means someone crept up and aimed a gun at me—at my back—and shot—and the only reason I’m alive is that most people don’t have any idea how hard it is to hit a target. The force of the explosion jerks the gun unless it’s held rock-steady. One of you didn’t know that.”
“This is absolutely the limit.”
Valerie’s protest was icy, outraged. She tossed her platinum head. “I’ve been insulted ever since I arrived. But I refuse to be accused of murder. I’m leaving. Right now.”
She turned and stalked across the stone floor.
Chase crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t know you were a channel-ready swimmer, Val.”
That stopped her. She whirled to face him. Her beautiful eyes blazed. “The boat will take me to shore. Now.”
“No. No one’s going anywhere. Not until I say they can go.” Chase smiled grimly. “Unless they wish to swim.”
“Wait a minute, Dad.” Roger’s voice was conciliatory. “You’re upset. Of course if Val wants to go home, well have to—”
“No.” A vein pulsed in Chase’s temple.
“But, Dad—”
“Shut up, Roger.” Chase’s breathing was easier now. He squinted at the woods. “Who got here first?”
There was an instant of uneasy silence.
Enrique’s face was expressionless. “I think I did, Mr. Prescott.”
Chase focused on him. “Who came next?”
Enrique looked toward Valerie.
The actress clenched her hands. Her eyes smoldered. “Wait a minute now, wait just a minute. Is this a put-up job?” Furiously she jabbed a finger. “You were here when I came!”
Burton Andrews stepped back as if she’d struck him. “I didn’t say I wasn’t,” he stammered. “I heard the shots—I was over by the track and I came as fast as I could.”
Near the track? Why hadn’t Trevor and I seen him? Of course, there were all those weeping willows …
Chase jerked his head toward me. “Okay, Henrie O, get this down.”
I’m not fond of barked instructions, and I serve as no man’s scribe. But these were not normal circumstances. I got out my notebook.
The order of arrival sorted out like this:
Enrique
Burton
Valerie
Lyle
Trevor
Haskell
Roger
Miranda
Me
“Enrique, check on Rosalia and Betty.” Chase pointed up the path. “Then come back.”
Miranda gave a little moan. “Oh, God, do you think something’s happened to them? Oh, my God, what’s going on here?” Her hands twisted together.
Chase shot an irritated look at his wife. “Nothing’s happened to them. If we had a cellar, that’s where Rosalia would be. Hiding. She doesn’t look for trouble. Enrique will find them. Come here, Burton.”
The secretary edged toward Chase, reluctance evident in every line of his body.
“Christ, man,” Chase snapped, “what’s wrong with you?”
“No-nothing.” Burton stared at Chase with those stricken-deer eyes. The secretary had the died-again attitude of the born loser. He’d been blamed so many times for mistakes that weren’t his that his automatic response was going to be “I didn’t do it.”
Chase understood that. He spoke slowly, patiently. “Relax, Burton. Think back. You heard the shots, then what did you do?”
Burton swallowed convulsively. His eyes slewed toward the woods, then jerked back to Chase. “Well, I was up near the track. Sort of. But closer to the woods. I was—” He shot another nervous glance at Chase. “I was taking a quick break, a little walk, before I got back to work. But I was thinking about the appointments for next week, getting the material—”
Chase managed not to bark, but just barely. “Get on with it. You were taking a walk. What happened?”
“Well”—Burton’s tongue flicked over his lower lip—“I wasn’t paying a lot of attention when bang! I heard the shots and then I heard someone running—it must have been Enrique—so I started to run, too. I came up the path and you were just getting up from behind the shed and Enrique was hurrying toward you.”
“Did you pass anyone on the path? See anyone?” Chase fumbled for a handkerchief and dabbed at his bloody knees.
Miranda took the square of linen from him and gently touched the deep scratches.
“No.” Burton’s voice wavered. “I don’t think so.”
“You did or you didn’t.” Chase winced and roughly snatched the handkerchief from Miranda.
“No, no, I didn’t see anyone until I got here and saw you and Enrique.”
I hate to see time wasted. “Chase, obviously Burton didn’t see anyone. The gunman would immediately take cover when he heard us coming, then, at the appropriate moment, slip onto the trail, break into a trot, and arrive here at the platform to join in the general hue and cry.”
A crunch of footsteps sounded from the tangle of shrubbery and woods. No one said anything until Enrique emerged from the trees.
The valet reported to Chase that Rosalia and Betty had immediately locked themselves in the pantry after Betty ran in from outside and told the housekeeper about the shots.
“Where was Betty? Why was she outside?” I demanded.
Enrique ignored me. He kept looking at Chase, his pockmarked face impassive.
Chase took it up. “Where was Betty?”
“The storeroom. Rosalia sent her for some supplies.” Enrique’s tone was just short of truculent. “I told them to get back to work. Lunch will be served on time.”
Lunch. Oh, yes. People are born. They die, naturally or not, and everyday routines continue.
“Good enough.” But Chase
was not interested in what his employees were doing. His eyes were on me. “Henrie O’s right. It doesn’t matter when anybody arrived or didn’t arrive. Dammit, Henrie O, what does matter?”
“A thorough search of the premises and private interviews with everyone on the island to pinpoint the location of each person at the time of the shooting. That’s a job for the police. I’ve got at mobile phone and—”
“No police.” Chase’s voice slashed through mine.
I looked at Chase an instant too long. By the time I scanned the other watching faces, it was too late. If Chase’s announcement afforded relief to anyone, I’d missed it. All I saw on each visage was surprise and puzzlement.
“Hey, Chase, what’s the deal? Somebody tries to murder you, of course we’ve got to call in the cops.” Lyle Stedman’s gravelly voice betrayed his impatience.
“No cops.” Chase’s mouth set in a grim, determined line.
“Dad, wait a minute, think a minute.” Roger spoke quietly, gently. His face was still white with concern.
“The police?” Miranda’s voice was faint.
Chase held up both hands. The voices quieted. “This isn’t the way I thought it would turn out, but maybe it’s better to put it all on the table. One of you—one of you—” He stopped and stared at his family and staff.
Miranda hugged her arms against her slender body; her eyes were huge and terrified, like a child waking deep in the night.
Haskell’s dark good looks might have been carved out of mahogany. He watched Chase with an unwinking gaze.
Roger stepped toward his father, his hand outstretched. If Chase saw the gesture, he didn’t respond. Roger’s hand fell. His face screwed up in pain.
Valerie’s smooth, unlined countenance didn’t alter, of course. Perhaps that was an unsung advantage of face-lifts. It would take a hell of a crystal ball to read that lady’s thoughts.
Burton looked like a rabbit caught in a trap. I wondered if the secretary was going to faint.
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