Murder Most Persuasive tkm-3

by Tracy Kiely

  “Hey, if it wasn’t for me, the police would have never figured out who killed Gerald Ramsey! I helped clear Aunt Winnie’s name!”

  “And you also came very close to getting yourself—and me, I might add—killed!”

  I squirmed a bit when he said that. I preferred to gloss over that part when I thought of my first success at sleuthing. “Peter, I’m not doing anything dangerous—nor am I going to do anything dangerous,” I quickly added, hearing him about to interrupt again. “I am just helping Ann while the police conduct their investigation. It’s bad enough for her that they discovered Michael’s body on the old property, but knowing that Joe is in charge of the whole investigation is pushing her over the edge. I am merely here for moral support right now.”

  Peter groaned. “Right. Until you decide that moral support isn’t enough.” I had a sudden image of him resting his forehead on his desk in frustration. “Elizabeth, I don’t like this. I know you, you can’t not get involved, and I’m afraid that you’re going to get hurt!”

  “How can I get hurt with you coming home to protect me?” I joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

  “That’s just it—I won’t be home for at least another week.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Oh, it’s a long, complicated, and ultimately stupid story,” Peter groused. “But I’ve got to stay out here awhile longer to get it all straightened out.”

  “So I guess I won’t be coming out to see you this weekend?”

  “It doesn’t look good. I’m sorry.”

  Disappointment washed over me at the thought of Peter gone another week. “Oh. Well, that stinks.”

  “I know. Just please promise me to be careful and not to get involved in anything beyond giving the police a statement. Just because this man was killed eight years ago doesn’t mean that his killer won’t do it again if threatened.”

  A faint chill ran down my spine when he said that. “I promise,” I said softly, mentally amending “to be careful” to that statement. We talked a little more, but I think Peter sensed that I was bent on involving myself beyond his comfort level and was more than a little annoyed—both at being across the country and at not being able to convince me otherwise.

  After we hung up, I changed into my pajamas and thought about that Fourth of July party all those years ago.

  It had been a beautiful night. The day’s warmth had given way to a crystal-clear, balmy evening. Uncle Marty’s house, a white two-story colonial, sat on a manicured lawn that gently sloped down to the Miles River. Once night fell, we’d dragged wool blankets out onto the lawn and lain on them, idly watching the multicolored display of explosives above. The fireworks barge was so close that some of the debris from the explosions floated down to us like burned confetti. After the show was over, we’d watched the lights from the boats anchored on the water tip back and forth, gently rocked by the river’s current. After a while, the guests wandered off in various directions. Some, like Ann, Joe, and I, walked down to the water; others, like Frances, went inside to tend to the twins (Thing One and Thing Two), who were still nursing. Ann, Joe, and I sat on the dock, talking while we dangled our feet in the cool water. After a while, I walked back up to the house and headed to the bedroom that I was sharing with Ann. Sometime later, I heard the Things crying. When they didn’t stop after a minute or so, I got up to check on them. Scott was asleep on the bed—or rather, passed out on the bed. I had just started to soothe the boys when Frances came into the room and took over. Only seconds after I returned to my room, Ann came in disheveled and visibly shaken. It was then that she told me what had happened.

  After Joe said good night, she’d remained on the dock, trying to decide if she should break it off with Joe before she left for England. Although she didn’t want to, she was being pressured by both her father and Laura to do so. As she sat there, Michael approached her. He saw that she was upset and made an effort to console her, putting his arm around her shoulders. Although Ann realized that he was drunk, she didn’t know just how drunk until he made his sudden declaration of love, a love he claimed to have always felt for her and not Reggie. He said Reggie was proud and shallow, but Ann was the real thing, going so far as to call Reggie a pale copy of Ann. He then further shocked her by trying to kiss her. When Ann pushed him away, he grew angry and tried to do much more than kiss her. His inebriation kept him from doing any real harm, but he was still bigger and stronger, and it was several desperate minutes before Ann was able to punch him and wrestle herself away. Without looking back, Ann ran blindly for the house and to our room. She was horribly shaken and upset. I wanted to tell Uncle Marty and Reggie, but Ann refused. I think on some level she knew that by telling her father and Reggie, she would be destroying Michael’s life. Even though he’d tried to attack her, she was loath to destroy him. She had some idea of talking to him in the morning and insisting that he get help and, of course, cancel the wedding. However, in the morning Michael was gone and Reggie announced that she’d broken it off with him. Ann saw no reason to tell Reggie the rest of it. A week or so later, Ann left for England and Michael’s embezzlement was discovered and we all thought we’d seen the last of him.

  Which was sort of true.

  But what had really happened? Had Michael left and come back? And if so, with whom and why? And why was he killed? Was it the money, or was it because of his attack on Ann? Or was it for some completely different reason? There was something there that bothered me, something I was missing. But every time I tried to pinpoint what it was, it swam out of reach.

  As I continued to mull everything over, I realized that Peter was absolutely right. I was planning on injecting myself into this investigation. But why? Crawling under the bed’s thick duvet, I frowned at the ceiling. Was Kit (God forbid) right? Did I secretly see myself as a modern-day Nancy Drew, coolly stepping in to solve the crime when the local police force found themselves baffled? Did I actually possess a kind of knack for solving crimes, or was I merely a twenty-eight-year-old who was bored out of her skull with her current life? That last thought struck a tender nerve somewhere in the not-so-deep recesses of my head. Could that be my problem? True, I didn’t particularly enjoy my job, but so didn’t loads of other people and they didn’t run off and push themselves into murder investigations. For the first time in my adult life, I was in a mature, stable relationship with a great guy. Hell, just being in a relationship with a guy who wasn’t cheating on me, sponging off of me, or stealing my patent leather pumps for reasons best left unexamined was a first. True, a lot of my friends were getting married lately, and I could navigate both the Williams-Sonoma bridal registry and Babies “R” Us sites with my eyes closed. But did I want to get married and start a family? I loved Peter, but I didn’t know if I was ready for that step. Among other things, I always figured I should know how to balance my checkbook before I got married, let alone start a family.

  No, I thought, squaring my shoulders as much as one can square shoulders in a bed with a down mattress, I refused to believe that I was focusing on these investigations to distract myself from a boring, but nevertheless secure, job and a life that seemed to have no real direction.

  Then again, I’d believed in the Easter Bunny until I was almost twelve. I don’t even want to go into the whole Santa Claus debacle, except to say that childlike naïveté begins to resemble undiagnosed lead poisoning when it hits late adolescence.

  I pulled the bedspread up to my chin and curled onto my right side. As I listened in silence to the soft, rhythmic ticking of my bedside clock, I decided the reason I found police investigations so fascinating wasn’t the issue. The issue was that a man—a man who was once considered a part of the family—had been murdered and buried under the family pool.

  Don’t ask me why, but I found myself remembering the lines from A Charlie Brown Christmas, the scene where Charlie Brown confides to Lucy that he’s feeling let down about Christmas. Lucy assertively tells him, “You need involvement. You need to ge
t involved in some real Christmas project. How would you like to be the director of our Christmas play?” To which Charlie Brown excitedly replies, “Me? You want me to be the director of the Christmas play?”

  Well, no one had asked me to be the director of this investigation, but I had to admit that there was something enticing about setting an overlooked wrong to right.

  Chapter 11

  It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.

  —Emma

  The next morning, Ann and I ate a quick breakfast before we headed off to our respective offices. I wasn’t at my desk five minutes before I realized that it was going to be one of those workdays that ended with me wanting to drink my feelings. Every article that landed on my desk had a same-day deadline and most appeared, by my addled brain anyway, to be written in Greek. Using both FactCheck.org and large amounts of coffee, I was able to get a majority of the work done. Unfortunately, it was a little ditty written by one Arthur MacArthur (if that was indeed his real name) that was my undoing: a two-thousand-word opus on the migratory habits of the Baltimore oriole. It took me a good five hundred words in to realize he wasn’t talking about the baseball team. By the time I finished, I had a headache, my neck hurt, and I had taken a real dislike to both Arthur MacArthur and his stupid birds. That’s about the time Kit called, wanting to know when I was returning to her house and if I could babysit Pauly that night. She wasn’t happy with either of my responses. “I don’t see why Ann thinks she needs you there,” Kit groused. “I hope you haven’t been pretending that you can actually find out who killed Michael. I’d hate to think that you’re staying there under false pretenses.”

  “False pretenses! I’m helping her organize the items that Uncle Marty specified in his will and offering moral support while the police conduct their investigation.”

  “Ha! You’re pretending to be Jane Marple is what you’re doing,” she shot back.

  “I am doing no such thing,” I angrily bit out. Jane Marple. Please. Granted, she was a brilliant detective, but she also was a frail old woman who enjoyed bird watching and knitting. If I was going to emulate any of the women sleuths from the Golden Age, it would be Adela Bradley. Mrs. Bradley was breezy, fashionable, and devastatingly clever; she also drank gin and, perhaps more important, had no earthly desire to knit. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  Kit ended the call by tersely reminding me that I’d promised to babysit next Tuesday. I forced myself to respond pleasantly and almost pulled a muscle in the process. I hung up, refusing to let myself dwell on the call. After all, I was a very busy and important career woman with much to do. For instance, I had to organize a birthday celebration for Sharon. I knew she’d like the idea because she actually e-mailed me the suggestion. The one hiccup in the plan was that on the likability scale, Sharon runs a close second to Dickey. However, lured by the anticipation of cake, the staff dutifully crowded around the conference table and sang an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Unfortunately, they all left with empty stomachs and grumpy at me because Sharon is on a diet and refused to let me buy a cake. We celebrated with celery sticks and carrots. Yeah. Happy birthday, Sharon.

  I was still irritably pulling celery strings from my teeth when Ann called. However, within a matter of seconds my irritation with the celery was replaced by another emotion—uneasy foreboding.

  “Joe called,” Ann said without preamble. “The coroner’s report came in. It’s official. Michael was murdered.”

  “I’m sorry, Ann,” I said. “I really am.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. I mean, I didn’t really think it was an accident that he wound up under the pool, but still…”

  “It would have been nice to hear that it was all some terrible mistake,” I finished. “I know. I wish it was a mistake, too. Did Joe say anything else?”

  “Yes,” Ann said after a moment’s pause. “He wants to talk to us again, at the house tonight. Actually, I think he really just wants to talk with Reggie again, but he’s covering that by asking to meet with us all.”

  “Why do you think Joe wants to talk to Reggie in particular?”

  “I don’t know. It was nothing he said, it was just that…”

  “You just know him,” I finished.

  “Yeah, something like that,” she said with a sigh. “Can you…”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  * * *

  I left work as soon as I could, stopped by Kit’s to grab some more clothes, and rushed back to Uncle Marty’s house. The rest of the family had already arrived. I heard a tangle of raised voices—Reggie’s, Frances’s, Scott’s, Laura’s, and Miles’s—coming from the living room. As I peeked in, Ann saw me and made her way toward me, her shoulders slumped. “Thank God you’re finally here,” she muttered. “They’re driving me crazy with questions. Like I know anything!”

  “Is Joe here yet?” I asked, shrugging out of my coat.

  “No, but I expect him any minute.”

  No sooner were the words out of Ann’s mouth than there was a rap on the door. The voices fell silent and Ann turned to me, her eyes wary. “Showtime, I guess,” she said and reached to open the door.

  As expected, it was Joe who stood uneasily on the front steps. At his side once again was Sergeant Beal. From the thoughtful way she eyed Ann, I suspected that she knew of Joe and Ann’s past. I didn’t get the impression she viewed this information through unbiased eyes.

  “Hello, Joe. Sergeant Beal,” Ann said, opening the door wider. “Won’t you come in? Everyone is in the living room.”

  “Thank you,” Joe said. He shot Ann a quick look that seemed to express discomfort at having to be here at all. Ann ducked her head in silent acknowledgment before proceeding into the living room.

  The uneasy silence that pervaded the room abruptly ended with Joe’s arrival. Scarlett gave a happy bark and scampered over to him while Frances snapped, “Why exactly have you asked to talk to us again? Nothing has changed since last night.”

  “Well, actually one thing has changed,” Joe said as he dodged Scarlett’s advances. “I received the coroner’s report. Michael was definitely murdered. His skull was fractured. It appears he was hit with something hard and heavy.”

  A brief silence met these words. After a beat, Frances shrugged and said, “Well, did anyone really think it was anything other than murder? I mean, the man was buried under the pool, for God’s sake!”

  “If I recall correctly,” said Sergeant Beal with a studied glance at her notebook, “you were the one who asked if Michael’s death could have been the result of his falling and hitting his head.” Sergeant Beal looked up from her notes with a studiously bland expression. Frances pressed her lips into a hard line and breathed loudly through her nose.

  “I do apologize for the inconvenience,” Joe said evenly, “but in light of the report, I wanted to make sure that I had everything I needed from you. Then I can move on with the investigation.”

  Ann moved out from behind Joe. “Won’t you two have a seat?” she asked, indicating the empty couch. Both Joe and Sergeant Beal sat down. Ann and I found seats as well. All eyes turned questioningly to Joe, but it was Sergeant Beal who began the interview.

  “Ms. Ames,” she said, turning to Reggie and glancing down at her notebook, “I wanted to go over again the last time you saw the deceased. You said that you ended the relationship with him because of his excessive drinking. Is that correct?”

  Reggie smoothed the lines of her skirt before answering. “Yes, that’s right. I felt that his drinking was starting to change him. I didn’t like it.”

  Sergeant Beal nodded sympathetically. “I can imagine. What was his reaction to your ending things?”

  Reggie’s eyes narrowed. “He was disappointed, of course. I already told you this.”

  “I know,” said Sergeant Beal with an apologetic smile. “Please forgive me, it’s just for the report. I have to get every detail.”

  From t
he way the corner of Reggie’s mouth curled, I don’t think she was buying Sergeant Beal’s whole “good cop” routine.

  “So,” Sergeant Beal continued, “you say he was disappointed. Was he anything else?”

  Reggie stiffened. “What else would he be?”

  Sergeant Beal spread out her hands. “Well, was he perhaps angry? I mean, I would imagine that he’d be pretty angry. By ending your relationship with him, wouldn’t you also be ending his shot to take over the company? I mean, I don’t know about your dad, but my dad certainly wouldn’t want to hand his company over to someone I didn’t trust.”

  Reggie’s eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. “What exactly are you getting at?”

  Sergeant Beal’s hands fluttered as if she was trying to find the right words to express herself. “Just that if he thought that he was not only losing you but also the chance to control the company, he might react with an emotion stronger than disappointment. He might, in fact, have been angry. Very angry. Since by your own account he was drinking very heavily that night, he might not have been able to control his anger.”

  “And?” Reggie bit out the word with barely suppressed rage.

  “And he might have reacted physically.” Sergeant Beal softened her voice and leaned forward. “He might have tried to attack you. If that were the case, and you fought back, it would be self-defense.”

  Reggie sat perfectly still. Her face drained of color. Her eyes, however, did not. They blazed with unbridled fury. “How dare you! How dare you! You think I killed him! I loved that man. I would never kill him.” My stomach twisted in anticipation of something terrible. Reggie’s temper was not something you wanted to see. Frances apparently agreed with my assessment, because she immediately spoke up.

  “Reggie, calm down. This is silly. No one thinks you had anything to do with Michael’s death. Besides, you couldn’t have. You said you broke up with him right after the fireworks and then went to bed.”