For a moment, I thought Samuel was glued to the spot, a warning to all who pass the precinct about how alleged felons are treated inside by the cops. He looked, and smelled, like hell. But he seemed to have forgotten all of that. He, too, was anxious to see the expression on Eli’s face when he showed up with Lady, when his father would see, once and for all, how capable his older son was.
We had nothing to say to each other on the way. He was thinking his thoughts, I my own. When we got to the corner of West and Twelfth, Samuel turned to look at the demolition site, the roof of the bar history by now.
After a moment, he looked back at me. He seemed to be smirking, but then he moved so quickly, I couldn’t be sure. He was speed-walking toward Harbor View, tugging hard on Lady’s leash when she stopped to sniff the old neighborhood, to reassure herself that she indeed was nearly home.
I could hear them as soon as I unlocked the door, loud voices coming from the dining room. I hoped the kids had finished lunch and were elsewhere. The shouting would surely upset them.
“Why are we sitting here with this god-awful slop congealing in front of us if we’re finished here?” I heard Bailey say.
“It can’t be legal,” his mother told him. Told everyone. “How can it be legal, that woman running this place?”
“She did it for the money,” Janice said.
Samuel walked into the lobby first. I let the door close quietly, looking to my right and seeing David in his spot, his fingers tapping rapidly against each other, his jaw clenched.
“I know you’re angry and disappointed,” Eli told them, “but what you’re saying isn’t so. Harry didn’t leave her any money, not a dime.”
I reached for Samuel’s arm. When he turned to question me, I put my finger up to my lips. “Wait until they’re finished so you and Lady can make a grand entrance,” I whispered.
He frowned, but stopped. Marty was right. He was as nutty as a fruitcake.
“Really. How about half the estate?” Janice said.
“New York State is not a community property state. Dad’s right. She doesn’t get a dime. The money is all in trust for Harbor View.”
“Well, what about my sister’s personal things, her jewelry, for example?” Arlene asked, her voice even louder than it had been before. “Why wasn’t that mentioned in the will. It was supposed—”
“Right. Where’s the diamond necklace, for example?” Janice asked.
“That was all explained to you,” Eli said. “All her personal effects had been left to Harry in her will. He was therefore free to leave them, or give them, to whomever—”
“So she gets my sister’s things?”
There was a silence then.
Samuel turned to look at me again. But before I had the chance to say anything, Nathan spoke up.
“Shouldn’t we table this until my brother gets out of jail?”
“Good luck on that.”
Had there been a smirk minutes ago, it was gone now, replaced by the panic in Samuel’s eyes.
No, not panic. Rage.
“You told them,” he whispered through his teeth.
I shook my head. “The police must have called.”
“Bailey, how could you think that Samuel killed anyone? It’s all a terrible mistake. His arrest, it was preposterous.”
“Take it easy, Dad.”
“I don’t care what they said. I cannot believe—”
And then he looked up, because Arlene and Bailey had seen Samuel in the doorway, me standing right next to him, Dashiell behind me, his tail straight out behind him like a rudder, Lady already in the dining room, wiggling and panting because the kids were there, sitting like zombies at their places, the dirty dishes from lunch still in front of them.
Now no one was listening to Eli. They were all staring at Samuel.
And Lady.
The kids noticed her, too, in whatever way they could.
“It’s Lady,” Cora called out.
“She’s—” Dora began.
“Back,” Cora finished, clapping her hands.
“But who’s—”
“That other dog?”
Jackson stood. He thrummed his arms up and down in front of his stained shirt, as if he were beating an imaginary drum, then walked out of the dining room, ignoring both dogs as he passed.
Charlotte began to moan and hit her chest with her fists.
Willy got up. He was wearing a pair of socks on his hands. He began to walk toward Lady, but when he saw Dashiell, he stopped, looking from one to the other. Then he began to cry, wiping his eyes with the socks, a method to his madness.
I unhooked both leashes, letting the dogs go to them.
Then Eli was standing.
“Samuel,” he said, as if he were looking at a ghost. “What’s going on? What’s happened? How did you get out? Where did Lady come from?”
And as Samuel walked toward his father, Eli got up. “Excuse me,” he said to the Pooles, “I have to talk to my son.”
Samuel began to cry. Eli handed him a handkerchief and led the way out, glaring at me as he passed by, heading toward his office.
“We were just going,” Arlene called after him, standing and smoothing her skirt, then patting her hair. “I’ll call you, Eli.”
But Eli ignored her. He was deep in conversation with Samuel. I watched as they went into the office and locked the door behind them.
After Arlene, Janice, and Bailey left, passing me as they did David, as if I weren’t there, Nathan got up. He came and put his hand on my arm, leading me back out into the lobby, then toward the garden door.
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t interfere again. My father is extremely upset about what you did,” he said.
“Is he?”
“He thinks you should have talked to him about your—”
“Theories?”
“Yes, your little theories. He’s not thrilled that you carted his son off to the police.”
“I bet he isn’t.”
“You have a real attitude, don’t you?” He unlocked the garden door, and we walked out into the heat.
Homer must have been working here recently. There was a bag of fertilizer near the door and a spade propped against the wall, a couple of small bushes waiting to go into the ground. The hose was uncoiled, too. I stepped over it as I walked away from the door.
“You seem to be enjoying all this, as if it’s all some sort of joke.”
“Not at all, Nathan. I don’t consider the death of Harry Dietrich nor the attempt on his wife’s life a joke.”
“His wife.”
I was about to give him the cheeky answer I thought he deserved when I noticed something. It was the place where the bookend had been buried, the bookend that might still have a readable print on it, the thumbprint, perhaps, of the person who tried to kill Venus with it, because of the way the thumb might have curled under the lady’s chin, but the bricks were out of place and the dirt had been disturbed. Someone had been digging at the hidey-hole, and though I couldn’t be sure from where I stood, I was pretty sure the hole would be empty.
“That’s correct,” I said, slipping a hand into my pocket and taking a step back. “Venus was Harry’s wife.”
“Be that as it may, it’s no longer your concern. My father wishes to terminate your services, as of today. Now that Lady’s been recovered, we no longer need you and Dashiell. If you send me a bill, I’ll send you a check for what we owe you.”
“Your father didn’t hire me.”
“Oh, I hope you’re not counting on Venus to save your job. That’s a laugh. Of course, we’ll never know what it was that put Harry over the edge, perhaps the grief over Marilyn’s death,” he said, shaking his head, “or merely his age, but I’m sure that, whatever caused his senility, the courts won’t have any problem overturning that will. In a short time, things will be as they should, with Dad running Harbor View.”
“For how long?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How long before you find some way to get him out of the picture?”
Nathan snorted like a bull about to charge. “I think we’ve had quite enough of your paranoid delusions for now. When the police informed us about the charges against Samuel, it didn’t take a minute to figure out who had accused him. There’s no one else here who would exhibit that kind of disloyalty to Harbor View. And now you have another scenario, more accusations? Please.”
“How about your own disloyalty?” I asked him, taking another step back. “I see they’re already at work next door, tearing down the bar, getting ready to knock this place down next.”
Nathan just glared at me, his cheeks jumping.
“I thought things started when Lady vanished, no one knowing where she had gone, the kids in turmoil over her loss. But your plan to get Harry and your father to agree to sell Harbor View was well underway by then. It started with the fire at the old paper factory next door, didn’t it? Then the bar was closed down by the Board of Health. Rats, I believe. Only no one knew then who the real rats were, rats who couldn’t wait until two old men lived out their dream and died naturally, rats who wanted to hurry things along, cash in on the hot real estate market by selling Harbor View to the developer who had been after you for the land, who Harry had turned down enough times that they approached you to see if you could persuade your father to swing the decision, not knowing either of them of course, not knowing that, short of dying, these men would never give this place up for money or any other reason.
“But you kept trying. Next there was the electrical fire in the basement, jeopardy a little closer to home. Luckily Lady was still here then. Venus said she was spectacular, a real lifesaver, barking and backing up, leading her right to where the problem was.
“It was right after that that Samuel took Lady away. It’s so nice to see brothers getting along so well. Your father will be so proud of your teamwork.”
“That’s quite enough. No one’s interested in your—”
“Little theories?”
He reached out for me, but I got out of the way, taking my hand out of my pocket then, pointing my gun at him.
“Ah, so this time you’re not taking any chances,” he said, a big smile on his hard face.
“There were two arguments in Harry’s office that last day. The first was Arlene, trying to find out where Marilyn’s jewelry was, assuming it should belong to her now. The second was you, Nathan, trying to convince Harry to sell. You must have been fuming when you came out of there, angrier than you’d ever been in your life, the old guy steadfast about this place, despite your attempts to scare him off, wear him down, wheedle a yes out of him. Am I doing okay so far?”
Nathan nodded, but not to me. It was as if he were signaling someone behind me.
“Good one,” I told him, keeping my eyes forward.
That’s when I saw him. He got up and walked slowly in our direction, his hands covered with paint and dirt, one of them cradling something against his chest. Even though it was covered by his hands, very little of it showing, and what was exposed was covered with dirt, I knew what it was, the only thing it could be. And as I watched, horrified, Jackson went over to Nathan and handed him what he was holding, the way he’d given me back Dashiell’s leash when I’d dropped that.
Nathan took the bookend, and his mouth slid into a sneer.
“So there it is,” he said. “I wondered where it had gone.”
He turned toward Jackson; for some bizarre reason, I thought it was to thank him. Instead, he grabbed him and pulled him in front of him as a shield.
“Watch out,” I screamed, too late. “Keep him out of this. This is between us.”
“Are you going to shoot me now, Rachel?” he taunted. He had one arm around Jackson’s throat. In the other hand he held the bookend. He brought it up, ready to strike. “I didn’t realize quite how hard I had to do it last time,” he said. “I won’t make that same mistake twice. That David. He’s really been on a rampage lately, since Dad cut his medication. First Venus, then Jackson. Why don’t you put down the gun now?”
But before I could, something dark and unyielding came from behind me and knocked the gun out of my grasp. I heard a cracking sound, something breaking, the garden tilting it seemed, swaying first one way, then another. There was another sound, the gun skittering across the bricks and stopping, but I couldn’t look. Something else caught my eye. The dogs. They had both jumped into the garden through the window some careless person had left open, Dashiell first, Lady right behind him.
Samuel was bending, to try to get the gun, and Nathan was telling him to grab me, so that David could strike again—David, who wasn’t even there.
My temperature seemed to shoot up, and my right arm felt numb, but my mind was clear.
“Lady, walk-up,” I shouted. “Walk-up, good girl.”
Samuel was reaching for the gun. I kicked as hard as I could, connecting with his face, dead center.
Jackson was still being held as a shield. No matter. I had a plan, too. And mine also included teamwork.
“Dashiell, paws-up,” I yelled, pointing at Jackson, and with Lady right behind Nathan, where I’d positioned her, Dashiell flew into Jackson, hitting his chest with the force of a sledgehammer, sending him, and Nathan, backward, falling over Lady and landing on the brick. I heard the satisfying clunk as Nathan’s head hit the unforgiving garden floor, and as soon as I saw that Jackson was fine, cushioned by Nathan’s enormous bulk, I took my eyes off them, kicked Samuel once more for good measure, and with my left hand retrieved my gun from under the table.
“Watch them,” I told Dashiell, seeing his body start to vibrate with the pleasure of being presented with a task he was magnificently up to.
I slipped the gun into my pocket, offered my left hand to Jackson, helping him up and out of harm’s way, then pulled out my cell phone, asked Jackson to hold it up for me, and dialed the precinct.
CHAPTER 38
Be Seeing You, I Told Her
After sitting in the emergency room for two and a half hours waiting for the doctor to look at my arm, then another hour waiting for the X ray to be taken and read, I had the cast put on my arm. It was a soft cast, layers and layers of thick gauze covered with stretchy purple tape and a no-nonsense sling, navy with an ecru trim. When I looked at my reflection in the big window, it resembled a hammock.
The pills they gave me had started to kick in, replacing the pain with a sense of euphoria. A few more minutes, and I could have played baseball, using the arm as a bat.
By the time I was released, it was dark out. I stopped in the gift shop for some candy bars to tide me over and went upstairs to Venus’s room.
She was sitting up, looking wildly beautiful, that long dark hair framing her pretty face, a magazine across her lap. When she looked up, her hands flew to her mouth.
“What happened?”
“Samuel hit me with the business end of a shovel. But you ought to see the shovel.”
“You promised after we talked you were going to the police.”
“I couldn’t. Not after last time. Not until I had it all.”
“You could have been—”
“But I wasn’t,” I told her, sitting on the edge of the bed, crossing my legs so that I could lean the arm on my right thigh, give my neck a rest.
“Poor Eli,” she said.
“He’ll be here tomorrow. He wants to talk. I think things will be okay at Harbor View.”
“I’m going to sell, Rachel.”
“What.”
“I’m not going to close. I’m going to sell. Harry and Eli were foolish not to take advantage of this offer. I can buy something else in the neighborhood and have it renovated exactly the way I want it, the way Eli and I decide would be best,” she said. “We’ve learned so much since this building was purchased and renovated. I’ve been thinking, since you left, that with the money we can get for this site, we can have something better. The kids don’t appreciate the view anyway. Tha
t sort of thing means nothing to them. And I wouldn’t mind getting them away from the highway, all that noise and exhaust. What I’d like for them is a pool. And if we had a larger facility, Eli could do some training, one or two young doctors at a time. We can pass on what we’ve learned. We can learn from others, young doctors with fresh ideas. I think it’s a fantastic opportunity.”
I nodded, my eyelids feeling as if they’d been weighed down with bricks.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice coming from far away.
“I’m fine,” I lied. I’d been lying all day. What was one more? I reached for the water, and she poured me a glass.
“Did you find out about the necklace?” she asked.
“Janice,” I said. “She’d gone to the bathroom. Samuel ‘discovered’ you on the ground. He called her over, practicing his shocked look, which was no doubt genuine, given how he feels about the sight of blood, then he left her there and went to call the others, including Nathan, who had already washed his murderous hands and gone back to the dining room to be with the others when Samuel broke the news. She saw the necklace. When you were down, it slid up to your neck, out from under your shirt, which reminds me—” I pulled it out from under my shirt and bent my head. Venus unhooked it and put it on.
“So it was Janice who tore it off me?”
“Right.”
“How do you know this part?”
“I called her,” I said. “Not much else to do, all those hours I was waiting in Emergency.”
“Then how did David get it?”
“She tore it off you and found some blood on her hand, freaked out, and dropped it. She ran out to wash her hands. When she went back, it was gone. In fact, she looked again the day of the funeral, thinking it might have gotten kicked under the desk by accident.”
“But David had picked it up, because of the sparkle. He loves this necklace.”
“He’d seen it before?”
“Yes, I used to take it off and let him play with it when we were alone.”
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