Sweet Revenge

by Diane Mott Davidson

  I waved this away. “Elizabeth,” I said, “right after I talked to you at the ski resort, someone attacked me, tried to hurt me and threatened me, someone I never got a good look at. If it wasn’t you, which I’m guessing now is the case, then there’s really no need for this.”

  “You were attacked?” Marla squealed.

  “Marla, Goldy, please.” Father Pete again.

  “I did not attack you,” Elizabeth went on. “And I don’t know who killed Drew. But I think I know why he might have been killed. I told the police all this, but they seemed not to be interested. I mean why someone would murder him, in a very general sense.” She took an emboldening breath. “I called him shrewd Drew. He never became involved in anything—any case, any business deal, any relationship—that he couldn’t win. You’ve probably heard about how he insisted on getting half my inheritance.”

  “I think I picked something up. A rumor.” I tried to make my face look blank, since of course I was not supposed to know the details of what Tom had told me.

  In the background, I heard Julian say, “Actually, Chantal, I probably shouldn’t come look at your room.” Oh Lord. “But I can teach you to prep these lamb chops, if you want.” Chantal murmured something, and Julian replied, “I’m a vegetarian, too. But a job’s a job.” Then Chantal started up again with her bright patter, and I could tune her out while I tried to concentrate on what Elizabeth was saying.

  “Before I deeded half my inheritance over to him,” she was saying, “he wouldn’t stop talking about how he was going to save the world from the bad guys. What was I doing? he demanded to know.” She stopped to dab her eyes. “Well, I was trying to save the world, too, by raising money for worthy causes. Drew, though, after I gave him the money he used to buy that Aspen bungalow—probably has a billionaire living in it now—just did whatever he wanted. And unfortunately, what he wanted wasn’t me. So then I hoped he would change. I kept hoping and hoping. All right, I was drowning in denial, and I don’t mean the river in Egypt, as they say. Plus, I admit it now”—here she looked to Father Pete for support—“being Mrs. District Attorney gave me a platform, a cachet, and I could be more effective, I thought, in that role. So I put up with him acting as if he wasn’t married…until two things happened. He drove drunk with that young girl in the car.”

  Here Elizabeth’s tears became a torrent, and she stopped talking when she took a tissue from Marla and honked into it. I so wanted to get back to catering the party, especially since Elizabeth had told me nothing I hadn’t already learned.

  “And he lied about it,” she said, sobbing, “and tried to get it covered up so he’d be reelected. As soon as I found out the truth, I filed for divorce. But somehow that didn’t come out until after he’d lost the election, so it looked as if I’d kicked him when he was down. But I didn’t! Actually, in hindsight, I remembered how he’d asked and asked my mother how she was feeling when we’d first gotten married. She was a smoker, and my dad had already died. Then I realized, know what? Right from the beginning, I believe he went out with me, and then married me, because he knew I was the sole heir to a good chunk of money, and that my mother wasn’t long for this world. Ooh…” and then she trailed off in another fit of crying. Father Pete patted her back, and Marla and I exchanged a look: How long, O Lord?

  Hermie saved us. “Elizabeth! Come help me figure out the place cards, would you, darlin’? Marla, do you want to come, too? No? Oh, Elizabeth, is this your priest friend? Is he coming to our party?” Her voice became sharp. “Chantal, come out of the kitchen, you’re bothering the workers.”

  “She’s not bothering—” Julian began. But even his niceness could be quashed with a chilly look from a hostess, and the glance Hermie gave Julian was straight from the Arctic Circle.

  Almost as soon as they left, I wished I’d been nicer to Elizabeth. Oh, why couldn’t I feel guilty when I was acting bad, instead of later? These days, I seemed to be getting as uncaring as some of the mean wealthy folks I catered to.

  Which reminded me. While Marla chatted with Julian, I pulled out my cell and put in a call to Arch. I got his voice mail, probably because he was already catching air over at Regal Ridge. I told him I was sorry I hadn’t been nicer the day before, when I was attacked. He was great, I added, and I appreciated his concern, even if I didn’t always show it properly. If he hadn’t found me, I might have been hurt far worse. He would always come first in my heart. By the time I pressed End, I was swallowing sobs—which was a message Arch wouldn’t love. Oh, well.

  “Goldy!” Hermie again. It was getting to the point where I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to do any more catering for her.

  “Hermie,” Marla interjected, “Goldy’s busy—”

  “Yes, Mrs. MacArthur?” I said quickly.

  “My daughter wants to go to the movies with your assistant!” Hermie gave Julian an accusing glare.

  Chantal would be lucky to get Julian, I thought, but said only, “Oh, we never, ever fraternize with clients. It’s strictly forbidden. We never do it.”

  “Never,” Julian repeated, trying not to smile.

  “Well, I should certainly hope not. Chantal is just a girl, and she’s destined for better things.”

  “Mrs. MacArthur,” I said quickly because I thought Julian might start laughing, “who lives next door to you?” I pointed out the repaired window.

  “Why, the Upshaws. They’re in West Palm for the winter. Why do you need to know?”

  “I was confused, I apologize. The other night, everyone was saying what a magnificent hostess you are, the best one on the street. I thought it was the Barclays who said it—”

  Hermie proudly lifted her chin, as susceptible to flattery as the next person. “Well, they probably did say it. The Barclays live on the other side of the Upshaws.” And with that she swept out. Thank God.

  Suddenly I felt dizzy again. When I grabbed the center island, Marla squawked and tried to catch me. Julian cried that I should get on the floor, right now, before I landed on it. Marla lowered me to the wood planks, and I thanked her.

  “You should have stayed in bed,” Julian said from above me. “I’m practically done with the work for this party. You didn’t need to come and put up with all that baloney.”

  “You’re the one she was insulting.”

  “I care!”

  His favorite line. I said, “I just need to sit down for a minute.”

  Marla obligingly brought over a stool. At my request, Julian put it next to the brand-new window.

  “Now, I’ve got to go check on the table,” Julian warned. “And I don’t want you to get up. The food’s done. Are you okay here with Marla?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, with my gaze never moving

  Marla asked, “What are you looking at? Or should I say, What are you looking for?”

  “Just keep an eye on the house next door, would you? See if you see anyone at the windows.”

  The two of us stopped talking and kept a sharp eye on the Upshaws’ place. In the silence, I ran everything Elizabeth, Tom, Neil, and Marla had told me about Drew Wellington through my brain.

  He’d been an unfeeling, manipulative, stealing cad, that was certain. And he’d been a lawyer. Go figure.

  But it was something that virtually every one of these folks had said that was sticking in my mind. Drew had felt entitled to steal maps. He’d felt entitled to betray Larry, because Larry lost his temper easily and didn’t deal well with people—he wasn’t the smooth talker Drew was, anyway. Drew had felt entitled to swindle Smithfield MacArthur, because he was very rich, but not a very smart collector. He’d felt entitled to half of Elizabeth’s inheritance.

  Something was nagging at me, and I couldn’t think of what it was. Somewhere in all the verbiage that had been slung around in the last two days, and especially in Elizabeth’s story, there were nuggets of information I had not known before.

  Before I could extract the nugget from the depths of my cerebrum, a car rolled down the Mac
Arthurs’ driveway. More guests were arriving, but I wasn’t watching them. Just as the car came to a stop, that same face appeared in the window across the way, sending that same shiver right through my body.

  So, I was going to get answers to what I was looking for, eh, Father Pete?

  I just had.

  22

  Before you could say “snow,” I’d grabbed my jacket and plunged through the door that led from the kitchen to the out-of-doors. Marla called after me, but I ignored her.

  The night Larry Craddock and Neil Tharp had been fighting in the MacArthurs’ driveway, what exactly had been the last thing Larry had said? I remembered now.

  Then go ask the girl! You stupid dumb bastard! Force her to give it to you before I kick your butt over this cliff!

  Go ask the girl, indeed. Only someone hadn’t wanted the girl to be asked.

  It was my guess that the sheriff’s department hadn’t been able to find footprints at the Upshaws’ place because it had been snowing too hard to register any. Yet this was where the snowball had come from all right, with a knife inside, too. I was willing to bet the knife belonged to the Upshaws, and had been used in a spur-of-the-moment attempt to get rid of Larry and Neil. Which it had.

  I traipsed through the snow to the Upshaws’ garage, got up on tiptoe to look through the garage-door window, and saw just what I’d expected to see. Well, I wasn’t going to risk Tom’s wrath and try to sneak into the house.

  I marched up to the front door and started banging. “Hey, Sandee!” I shrieked. “It’s your haircutting client!”

  Of course there was no answer, and I didn’t expect one. But if I raised enough of a ruckus, I knew she’d come to the door rather than risk security-conscious neighbors calling the sheriff’s department. And if she decided instead to take off in Father Pete’s old green Volvo station wagon—the one I’d seen in the garage—the department already had the make, model, and plate, and it would only be a matter of hours before she was picked up.

  “Sandee!” I screamed again. I peered through one of the wavy-glass side windows, but saw nothing. “You don’t have to come out! Just come to the door!”

  “I have a shotgun pointed right at your head,” came the icy voice from inside. Sandee Brisbane.

  Bull, I though…but I moved a few steps to the right, just in case.

  “Great thing, surveillance cameras,” came the same voice. “I can just change my aim.”

  I started moving from side to side while I talked. The guests arriving at the MacArthurs’ house probably thought I’d gone crazy, a caterer in an apron and a jacket, too afraid to go to the place next door and borrow a cup of sugar.

  “I can guess why you came,” I called. “Vix’s mother, Catherine, contacted you, didn’t she? After the incident involving the booze, the nightie, and the police. You’d let your relatives know you were alive, didn’t you? You gave them some way to get hold of you in an emergency. And Catherine was just so upset, she needed to talk to the young woman who cared so much for her daughter. But instead of being reassured, imagine how surprised Catherine was when you came out of hiding, all in the service of taking care of your niece. How’m I doing so far?”

  There was no answer.

  “You sent threatening e-mails to Drew Wellington, right? Telling him to keep his pecker in his pocket and move away. But he didn’t go anywhere, did he? He wasn’t frightened, he just went to the cops about it. So you became more bold in protecting your assets, as you call Vix. Didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t hurt that asshole. I just wanted to warn him in person.”

  “And how’d that work out? Did you see who killed him?”

  “I saw a bunch of people, but once Wellington slumped over, I didn’t want to stick around. I raced out the library’s emergency exit, ’cuz somebody had already opened it. The end.”

  “Did you just want to warn Larry Craddock, too?”

  “Oh, Goldy, will you stop talking, please?”

  Instead, I raised my voice a notch. “Did you try to warn Larry Craddock? To keep away from Vix?”

  “Yes! But he was already dead. Now get out of here!”

  I tried to make my tone conciliatory. “Look, Sandee, if you turn yourself in—”

  “What do you want, Goldy?”

  “I want you to leave Neil Tharp alone. I know he was there when Larry and Drew did that thing with the girls—”

  “Bye, Goldy.”

  “Sandee,” I tried again, “you’re lost. You need help.”

  “I’m allowed to protect Violet!”

  “Let her parents protect her.”

  “I know a teenage boy whose mother won’t be able to protect him if she doesn’t go back to her van and take off. You got it? The shotgun’s pointed right at your head. I’m going to count to three. One.”

  “Sandee, stop!”

  “Two!”

  Dammit to hell. I stomped off the Upshaws’ porch so fast, I fell in the snow. Pain shot through every pore of my body. But at least Sandee Brisbane didn’t shoot.

  Once I’d painfully raised myself to my feet, I began to shuffle back to the MacArthurs’ house. And then Elizabeth Wellington’s words that I’d been searching for came to mind: Somehow that didn’t come out. She’d been referring to her filing for divorce from Drew Wellington. I was thinking along similar lines.

  Who had the power not to have something come out? And who had the power to find out about the results of a court case just as it came out? Of course, it wasn’t exactly legal or ethical to do either, but Drew Wellington didn’t exactly act legally, or ethically, or even nicely.

  He acted entitled.

  I needed to call Tom about Sandee, though by the time the police came for her, she’d probably be long gone from the Upshaws’ house. And now I really, really wanted to go down to the Furman County Courthouse to find out if what I was guessing was true. I should wait, I should let Tom handle things, but I’d been the one plastered into the snow and nearly asphyxiated. I refused to be scared anymore. Julian could handle the luncheon; he’d already insisted. Unfortunately, I was unable to just go get my van because Julian had the keys, and there was no way he would give them to me. I would have to find a way to the Furman County Courthouse without using my own vehicle.

  But don’t worry, I imagined myself saying to Tom…I’m not going to get entangled with a killer. I might, however, steal a car.

  “Mrs. Munsinger!” I called as Louise Munsinger drew to the top of the MacArthurs’ driveway in her silver Cadillac DeVille. “I’m doing the valet parking for the MacArthurs. May I take you down to the sidewalk?”

  “I don’t have any money for a tip.” But she moved over to the passenger seat anyway.

  “That’s all been taken care of by the MacArthurs,” I assured her as I slid behind the wheel. “But you’ll have to leave your cell phone with me. That’s what the other guests are doing. Then you can call your cell from inside the MacArthurs’ house, and I’ll come pick you up.”

  Louise said, “Well, all right.” She drew her cell right out of her purse and handed it to me. I drove to the MacArthurs’ sidewalk, jumped out of the car to open Louise’s door for her, and watched in delight as she trod down the path.

  I didn’t know what Louise Munsinger thought of my next move, rolling down to the end of the driveway, turning around, and taking off. And I certainly didn’t intend to wait and find out.

  On my way down to the Furman County Courthouse, I tried to call Tom on Louise Munsinger’s cell phone. When I got his voice mail, I informed him that Sandee Brisbane was staying inside the Upshaws’ house, next door to the MacArthurs’ place, in Regal Ridge. I’d just had a chat with her, I added, and she insisted she hadn’t killed Drew Wellington. She had been stalking him, though. It was a long story, I concluded. I could imagine Tom shaking his head.

  Inside the courthouse, the person I needed to talk to first was the clerk of the court. Harriet Taub was a nice woman, older, with gray hair, a winter-white suit, and a
tinsel corsage that you just knew had been given to her by office workers. The kind of bribery I was thinking of was not of such a sweet variety.

  I knew Mrs. Taub, as she told me to call her, had to look something up, either by name or case number. I didn’t have a case number, but I had a name.

  So Mrs. Harriet Taub tapped computer keys until she had a hit. As I suspected, the judge had made his decision in Ingersoll v. Ingersoll just four days ago, on Thursday, December 14. Mrs. Taub directed me to the clerk of the division that had handed down the ruling: Division One.

  Miss Ginnie Quigley, the Division One clerk, was an almost pretty woman, just the wrong side of thirty. When she smiled, she showed yellow, crooked teeth. She wore her dull brown hair long, and the black suit she wore in an attempt to make her look slender only made her pale face look as if it was floating somewhere above her body. She was not wearing a corsage. But I was sure Drew had told her she was beautiful, that she was his special friend. And no doubt she’d believed him.

  I introduced myself. “Oh,” Ginnie Quigley said with a huge smile, “Tom’s wife! He’s so sweet.”

  “He’s not going to be sweet to you when he finds out what your relationship was with Drew Wellington.”

  The smile faded. Ginnie Quigley swallowed, then licked her thin lips. “Uh, Drew’s dead.”

  “I know. Now please tell me when you let him know the decision in the Ingersoll case, or I’ll call Tom down here right now.”

  Ginnie Quigley didn’t hesitate to tell me she’d called Drew as soon as the ruling was in: Thursday evening, December 14. And yes, she’d told him what the ruling was.

  You ordinarily did not see a woman wearing a caterer’s uniform and a winter jacket racing through the courthouse to the side where the sheriff’s department was housed. But these were extraordinary circumstances. Or maybe somebody was already calling up to Tom’s floor to announce in a jaded voice, Tell Schulz his wife is here.