Final Chapter: A Megan Montaigne Mystery (Megan Montaigne Mysteries)

by Pam Stucky

  After he left, Megan poured herself another glass of the Riesling she’d been sharing with Lily, and took the bottle with her out to the balcony. She sat staring at the water for a very long time, glass in hand, forgetting to drink her wine.

  A lively tune ringing on her phone startled her out of her trance. It was Rae.

  “Hello?” said Megan, feeling like her voice and thoughts were coming through an endless tunnel, at the other end of which things might start to make sense.

  “Megan, it’s Rae,” said Rae. “I got news.”

  Instantly Megan's attention snapped back through the tunnel, and she was hyper aware of Rae’s voice on the other end.

  “News? What news?” Megan said, almost holding her breath.

  “You know I have a friend on the force,” Rae said.

  Megan didn’t know that, but this was not the time for that story. “Yes?” she said.

  “They found out what killed Emlyn, and also Courtney.” Her pause was so long Megan would have slapped her if she’d been in the room.

  “What was it?” said Megan. “What killed them?”

  “Taxine poisoning,” Rae said.

  “Taxine? What is that, is that like cyanide?” Megan said, naming one of the few poisons she could think of.

  “No,” said Rae, who was clearly relishing the act of delivering the news. “Taxine is from the yew tree.”

  Megan was blinking, trying to absorb what Rae was saying. “Yew? Pacific yew?” she said, thinking of the flat-needled conifer that was common to the area.

  “Possibly,” said Rae, “but Pacific yew isn’t that toxic, my friend told me. More likely English yew, she told me. And you know where there’s English yew around here, don’t you?”

  Megan blinked again, as though blinking was her only method now of bringing information into her brain. “Addie,” she said. “Addie Emerson’s garden.”

  “Exactly,” said Rae.

  Rae rattled on a bit longer, but Megan heard almost none of it before finally Rae signed off.

  All she could think about was Max’s question.

  You’re sure it was rosemary?

  SIXTEEN

  Megan couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling the day had left in her. She wanted to talk to Lily, but couldn’t bring herself to make the call. She wanted to go on a long walk to the falls, but the wind had picked up and the forecast was for heavy rain. Besides, it was almost seven o’clock, and the sun would set within the hour. To work off steam, she ran up and down the steps of the grand staircase until she was out of breath. Then she went into her apartment for a long soak in a bubble bath and then a dive into a good book before bed.

  Sleep eluded her. She lay tossing and turning in bed for hours, listening as the wind blew and the rain tapped against the windows, watching as the shadows of the trees crept up and down the walls. Finally, she gave up and got out of bed to get a glass of water. When she passed the front door, a dim light seeping under the frame caught her attention. She knew Sylvie and Wade had returned earlier in the evening, but she hadn’t had opportunity or, frankly, desire, to talk with them. Grabbing her phone and putting on a bathrobe and slippers, Megan then opened the front door and peered out.

  Someone had turned on the overhead light in the hallway. Usually Megan left it off at night, but she imagined Sylvie and Wade must have been shaken by the day’s events, too, and maybe the light was reassuring. Megan walked down the hall to the door that led to the public space. Unsurprisingly to her, she found it slightly ajar. She stepped through from the living quarters side to the library side, and, sure enough, saw a light emanating from the reading area.

  Megan went back to her room, grabbed her keys, and locked the door behind her before heading downstairs. She walked softly so as not to disturb the quiet of the night but loudly enough that she wouldn’t startle Sylvie.

  Once again, Sylvie had ensconced herself in one of the cozy, welcoming, overstuffed chairs of the reading nook. The fireplace was glowing, casting flickering shadows around the rest of the room. Sylvie had turned on the reading light next to her, and was engrossed in a stack of papers. From the much larger stack next to her, it looked like she was just about finished with whatever she was reading.

  “Hey,” Megan said in something just above a whisper.

  Sylvie looked up and gave a weary but warm smile. “Hey,” she said.

  “I couldn’t sleep either,” Megan said. She grabbed a blanket out of the ottoman and tossed a second one to Sylvie, then curled up in a chair and wrapped her blanket around herself. “How did it go today?” she asked.

  Sylvie put down the papers in her hand. “It was okay. That church, it was really quaint. I can see why Romy wrote it into her books.”

  “Did anyone come and bug you?” Megan asked.

  Sylvie shook her head ever so slightly. “There were a couple of people there, but they kept their distance. They were respectful, and kind.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Megan said. “About everything. I just … I don’t know what to say.” She looked out the window. The rain was lashing against the enormous glass panes, and the trees were blowing wildly in the wind, sending shadows running and jumping in every direction. For a moment, Megan thought she saw something move outside, but then she decided it was just the storm.

  Sylvie looked up in the direction of Emlyn’s room. “Do they know anything yet?”

  “Not yet,” said Megan. “Not that they’re telling me, anyway.” She nodded at the stack of papers now sitting by Sylvie. “What are you reading?”

  “Romy’s last book. She’d just completed the first draft before we got here. I’m done, actually. Do you want to read it?”

  “Sure,” said Megan.

  Sylvie gathered up the pages and tapped the edges into a clean stack, then reached onto the table next to her and picked up a binder clip to hold the pages together.

  Megan almost cried out. The binder clip was bright red. Like the clip she’d seen in Emlyn’s room. The clip and the papers that had been missing when Emlyn’s body was found. How had Sylvie come by a stack of papers that belonged to a dead woman?

  “Where did you get that?” she said, controlling her voice as best she could. In the dim of the room, with the shadows flashing about, Sylvie’s face was hidden in half darkness.

  “Emlyn gave it to me yesterday,” Sylvie said. “She thought I might like to read it.”

  “She gave it to you yesterday?” Megan repeated. Was this the truth? Surely Sylvie wouldn’t be flaunting the papers if she’d gone in and murdered Emlyn. On the other hand, she hadn’t expected Megan to come down in the middle of the night. The reading area, long after hours, was normally quite secluded.

  “Yes,” Sylvie said. “I’m a quick reader. And it was a first draft. Romy’s first drafts are—were—always shorter.” She handed the pages over.

  “What’s it about?” Megan asked, taking the thick stack of papers.

  “It’s about a guy who dies in a plane crash, only it turns out it wasn’t an accident,” Sylvie said.

  A sudden gust from outside slapped the bushes against the windows, and Megan felt the chill in her soul.

  “A guy who dies in a plane crash?” Megan said. Her chest was tightening and her head was swimming.

  “Oh gosh,” said Sylvie, seeing Megan's face. “I spoiled the ending. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s still a good book, though. When you’re done, can you give it back to me? That’s the only copy, apparently. Well, unless they find Emlyn’s computer. Romy’s computer got a virus and it wiped out everything.”

  Megan swallowed hard. “Of course. I will.”

  The rain pounded against the window again and a bolt of lightning lit up the room, followed by another a millisecond later. “Wow,” said Sylvie. “Quite a storm out there.”

  Unsure whether she could trust her legs, Megan stood, the manuscript feeling like it was alive and burning in her hand. “I’m going to head up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  �
�Goodnight,” said Sylvie, making no move to leave herself. “I’m going to stay here a while. Thank you again for everything. You’ve been so kind to us.”

  Megan nodded in response, then headed upstairs. “A coincidence,” she whispered to herself as she headed down the hallway to her apartment. “Just a coincidence.” She remembered suddenly a funny look Romy had gotten on her face when she’d told her how Zeus had died. Megan had dismissed it at the time. But now, the look took on new meaning.

  Back in her bedroom, Megan turned on her bedside lamp, propped up her pillows on the bed to serve as a backrest, climbed under the covers, and started reading. The storm raged outside, lightning followed a few seconds later by thunder that crashed and shook the sky. The book started with the description of a man in a plane in free fall. By the third page, he was dead.

  As Megan read through the manuscript, skipping past passages and skimming others in her quest to get through it faster, she found herself shaking. Some of the details were different, the personalities were different, the setting was different, but of one thing she was certain: she was reading Zeus’s story.

  Except the ending was different, too. In Romy’s book, what investigators had ruled an accident turned out to be involuntary manslaughter.

  It was three o’clock in the morning when she turned the last page. The storm had subsided, with the exception of an occasional gust of wind. The moon was starting to peek out from behind the dark clouds that were swiftly being blown away. Megan assumed Max would be asleep, but she sent him a text anyway, telling him how she’d come about the manuscript and what she’d just read, her fingers trembling as she tapped in her message.

  The room suddenly felt close and tight, and Megan felt she was suffocating under the weight of Romy’s words. She pushed off her covers, walked to the balcony, and opened the door. The air smelled of rain and wet earth and broken branches. Moonlight sparkled on the wet ground. Megan leaned over the railing to see if she could assess the damage the storm had done, but it was too dark to see much more than a few shadows that might have been tree limbs.

  That’s when she saw the ladder.

  Megan screamed. A quick, loud scream that penetrated the night and then was quickly absorbed by the darkness, as though it had never existed.

  The metal ladder was leaning up against the railing at the far end of her balcony. Jolts of fear like lightning shot through Megan's body. Without thinking, she rushed over to the ladder and with all her might pushed it away from the railing. It moved easily; she could tell no one was holding it or standing on it in the dark. Her heart pounded in her chest as she raced inside and bolted the balcony door behind her. Frantic, she almost ripped the curtains off their track as she pulled them closed. Megan looked around the room. “What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?” she murmured out loud as she stood, frozen in place. Move the bed in front of the window? Race to her car and drive away?

  She felt nauseated with terror. She grabbed her phone and called Max, but he didn’t answer. “Think, Megan, think,” she said out loud. Maybe the ladder had been left by … a gardener? But she knew that wasn’t the case. She couldn’t decide if it was safer to stay or to leave.

  Shouts in the hallway outside her front door made Megan's heart race so fast and hard she felt it would beat itself up through her throat. She walked as quietly as she could to the front door and put her ear up against the cool wood. Whose voices, she asked herself, but she already knew.

  One voice was Wade’s.

  And the other was Kevin’s.

  Then the voices stopped, and all she heard was loud grunts and the sound of bodies hitting the walls and the floor.

  I have to help Wade, Megan thought. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Kevin and Wade were tangled in a whirling knot on the floor, arms and legs flying as each fought for survival. Without thinking, Megan reached inside her door for the first thing she could grab—a small but solid oak table that stood by the door, where she tossed her keys and purse when she came home. She raised it as high over her head as she could, and then screamed as she brought it down hard, aiming for Kevin and hoping for luck.

  The table hit its mark, but Kevin was full of rage and adrenaline and was hardly fazed. He turned on Megan, his eyes bloodshot and crazy. Megan hardly recognized this madman as the river rafter she’d once known. “Do you have it?” he yelled as he got up and tried to run to attack her. But Wade was too fast, reaching out from where he lay on the floor to grab Kevin’s legs. Kevin fell hard, his face smacking against the doorframe on the way.

  The silence was sudden and unnerving. “Is he conscious?” Megan said, more to herself than to Wade, who was struggling to sit up. “Are you okay?” Megan said, looking at her guest. He looked dazed but lucid. His navy blue pajamas were rumpled, and a button was missing. Blood trickled lightly from some scratches on his face, and undoubtedly bruises would bloom soon, but he seemed to have made it through the scuffle far better than Kevin had.

  “What the hell just happened?” Wade said quietly, rubbing his hand gently on his cheek.

  The door to Sylvie and Wade’s room opened. “I’ve called 911,” Sylvie said. She went over to Wade and cradled him in her arms, completely unconcerned about getting blood on her bathrobe.

  Megan looked at Kevin. He might be unconscious now, but she wasn’t leaving anything to chance. “What can I tie him up with?” she said, wracking her brain, which seemed to have stopped working. An idea popped into her head, and she ran to the kitchen, returning with a fresh roll of plastic cling wrap. She went at it, wrapping the plastic around his wrists behind his back and around his feet, going around everything again and again as tight as she could until the roll was used up.

  The sound of approaching sirens cut through the night as Wade, Sylvie, and Megan all looked at each other in disbelief. “I’ll go let them in,” said Wade, wincing as he tried to get up.

  “No, you stay here,” said Megan. “I’ll go.” She picked up the oak table and handed it to Sylvie. “If he wakes up. Unless you have a better idea.”

  She wasn’t sure whether the authorities would know to come around the back, but if Max was with them, he would know, she thought. Impatiently she waited for the elevator to take her down to the living quarters entrance, and sure enough, Max was there with two other police officers as backup. She let them in and gave a brief run down on what had happened as the elevator took them back upstairs.

  “Kevin?” Max said. “Why?”

  “I’ll explain everything once we’re upstairs. Sylvie needs to hear this, too.”

  When they got back to the scene of the struggle, Kevin was awake again and struggling against his bonds. Max took one look, and turned to Megan. His signature smile with his gleaming teeth that practically sparkled in the light of the hall had returned. “Cling wrap?” he said, amused.

  “What can I say,” Megan said, returning the familiar smile with a rush of relief. “I didn’t have handcuffs.”

  * * *

  The other officers took Kevin away. Megan filled in Max, Sylvie, and Wade on everything that had happened, outlining how she knew Kevin was the murderer of all three victims. And then they all parted ways and she fell onto her bed and went straight to sleep without even getting under the covers.

  When she awoke it was nearly noon, and her phone was loaded up with missed calls, emails, and texts. The Emerson Falls grapevine was hard at work.

  Megan texted back to Rae, Lily, and Owen, adding Max to the group for good measure: “Meet me at one thirty at Rae’s. I’ll tell you everything then.”

  She showered and dressed quickly. When she got to the front door she found the casualties of the previous night’s struggles. The oak table had seemed fine the night before, but now she could see that one leg had been cracked in the fight. No one had taken the time to pick up the cling wrap, so she quickly scooped it up and threw it away. She grabbed her keys and locked her door, thinking this was the first time she’d felt safe in day
s.

  The weather forecast was for rain again later in the afternoon, but Megan craved the fresh air. Once again, she took the long detour along the river before heading up to Rae’s. When she passed Addie’s memorial park, she stopped. “English yew,” she said to the bush. “Who knew?” She then laughed. “I’m a poet and I don’t know it.” She turned and walked briskly the rest of the way to the pub.

  When she arrived, just before one thirty, the others were all already there sitting at a table. Rae came in at the same time Megan did, and set a burger in front of an empty seat.

  “On the house for our newest detective,” Rae said, winking. She took a quick look around at the other patrons to make sure no one needed anything, and pulled up a chair for herself.

  Megan settled down in front of the burger, realizing she hadn’t eaten yet all day. The others had already half-devoured their own, so she dug in.

  “Well?” said Lily. “Talk! Max won’t tell us anything!”

  Max smiled, his teeth twinkling in the reflection of the overhead lights. “I’m a professional,” he said. “What can I say?”

  “Well, I’m not,” said Megan. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m so glad that’s all over.”

  “I have so many questions, I don’t know where to start. How did you know it was Kevin?” said Owen.

  “It was that manuscript Sylvie gave me,” Megan said. “Romy’s last book, a first draft. Emlyn had given it to Sylvie and I saw Sylvie just as she was finishing it last night. Sylvie told me it was about a man who had died in a plane crash, but it turned out the crash wasn’t an accident.” She paused a moment as a wave of grief swept over her, so strong it felt it might wash her away. This reopening of the old wound: she knew she was going to have to deal with this later. She blinked hard to shut off those thoughts until she had time to sort through them.

  “It probably wouldn’t have struck me, except that people have been talking all week about how Romy was a great listener—but then would turn around and write their lives into books. Sylvie, Gus, Edison, they all had stories about how their conversations or situations ended up in Romy’s mysteries. Even that other author who came to the library right after Romy was killed—Kurt? Kirk?—even he had said she had stolen his ideas. So it just seemed like a strange coincidence. I mean, I know I was reading a lot into it. Coincidences happen all the time. But she gave me the manuscript and as I was reading it, I knew. This was Zeus’s story.”