“We haven’t talked about it,” Vonnie said, in a frosty tone.
She obviously didn’t want to talk about it. And I’m not one to push in where I’m not wanted. “Well, it’s a lovely place. I wish you the best with it.” I got to my feet and glanced at my husband. “I guess we’ll go upstairs now.”
Rafe nodded and took my hand. “We’ll see y’all in the morning.”
“Good night,” Gloria said, and Hildy smiled, sort of motherly and with that twinkle in her eye that said she knew exactly what we’d be doing in the privacy of our room. The old me would have been embarrassed. The new me was on her honeymoon, and didn’t care that everyone knew we were headed upstairs to make love.
“Breakfast at eight,” Gloria threw after us as we headed for the stairs.
I glanced at her over my shoulder, and she added, “The food’s just sitting there. We may as well eat it. We’re stuck here until the police informs us we can leave. And I don’t mind cooking.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
She shrugged. “Someone’s gotta do it.”
True. It would have been more suitable for Vonnie to step up, I guess, but maybe she didn’t like to cook. And with what had happened, making sure that Frenetta’s guests were comfortable—when she probably wished we were anywhere but here—wasn’t likely to be a priority, anyway.
“We’ll be sure to come down early,” I said, and then we headed out the door and up the stairs to our room.
I’ll spare you the details of the next thirty minutes. We walked into the room and locked the door behind us. Rafe kissed me, and one thing led to another. Thirty minutes later, we were side by side under the covers.
“Did that strike you as a little weird?” I asked when we’d caught our collective breaths.
“What?”
He sounded groggy. Men do after sex, I’ve discovered, although he doesn’t usually drop off this fast. Might be the beer in combination with a lot of sun earlier today.
I turned my head to look at him. He looked OK, just tired. “All of it. Vonnie jumping to the conclusion that I was offering to buy the house. Gloria making breakfast. Why isn’t Vonnie making breakfast? Gloria is a guest.”
“Not everybody likes to cook,” Rafe muttered, halfway to dreamland, “and I’m sure Vonnie just wants to pretend we ain’t here.”
No doubt. “We are, though. We are guests in what’s now her house, and good manners dictate that she make us feel at home.” Even if we were only here because the police wouldn’t let us leave.
“Her sister died,” Rafe said. “She’s prob’ly got other things on her mind.”
No doubt. Maybe I was reading too much into the situation. Maybe Gloria had simply noticed that Vonnie was overwhelmed by her sister’s death, and had taken it upon herself to play breakfast cook.
Vonnie hadn’t struck me as particularly overwhelmed—let alone grief-stricken—but let’s face it, some people are very reserved. It isn’t proper to wail and cry in public. Vonnie might be mourning inside; we just couldn’t see it.
I could hear a murmur of voices from downstairs, where they were still watching TV and talking. Closer by, it was quiet. Nina and Chip must still be out, because there was no sound from their room. The bed wasn’t banging against the wall, the springs weren’t squeaking, and Chip wasn’t snoring. Rafe was starting to fall asleep, though, his breaths becoming slow and even. His eyelashes were long and thick, like fans against his cheeks, and his lips were softer in sleep than when he’s awake.
He’s beautiful. And I love him so much it hurts. Tomorrow was supposed to be our last day here. I’d make sure he got to spend as much of it as possible on the beach. With no interruptions by the sheriff or anybody else. I’d take a couple of the Barbara Botticelli books with me, and spend the day under the umbrella. He could enjoy the beach and the ocean as much as he wanted, until he got sunburned and sick of it.
And hopefully, the day after that, we’d be allowed to go home. With so few suspects, all under one roof—a roof that had belonged to the victim—surely the sheriff would figure out whodunit soon, and let us all go. I mean, how hard could it be?
It wasn’t Rafe or me. We’d gotten here too late to doctor the wine, and we didn’t know Frenetta, so we had no motive.
Chip and Nina had only been here for a day when Frenetta died. Normally, that would let them out. They hadn’t known her long enough to want to kill her. Not enough history.
But there are exceptions to that rule. One of them could have known her from before. Or she might have known a secret about one of them—like, Chip had lived in Davenport before, and he had embezzled money or was generally suspected of having killed an earlier girlfriend. And when Frenetta threatened to tell Nina about it, Chip killed her to keep her quiet.
That’s the kind of thing that happens in books and movies. Not so much in real life. If Chip had lived in Davenport before—and especially if he’d committed a crime—the sheriff would have know about it.
No, if he and/or Nina were guilty, it was much more likely to have something to do with the real estate angle, and Nina’s father. Maybe Chip had been trying to impress Nina’s dad by convincing Frenetta to sell her property, and he’d gotten a little carried away, and Frenetta had ended up dead. Chip struck me as the kind of idiot who’d think forcing someone to sign sale papers would be a good idea.
Gloria and Hildy, by their own account, had been here twice before, over the course of a year. They’d had enough time to get to know Frenetta. One or both of them might have had a reason to kill her. I hadn’t met the woman, so I didn’t know how frustrating she’d been to deal with, but she might have been driving everyone around her crazy.
And of course Vonnie had known her their whole lives, and Groot for thirty or forty years, depending on how long he and Vonnie had been married. Plenty of time to get on each other’s nerves.
Catherine had met Frenetta when she, Jonathan, and the kids had been here before. Maybe she could shed some light on just how objectionable the dead woman had been, and whether her personality had been something that might have made people want to kill her.
At the very least, I should probably tell her what had happened. I’d been planning to do it yesterday, but then I’d forgotten.
Rafe was deeply asleep by now, and I didn’t want to wake him, so I slipped from the bed as quietly as I could, and pulled the sundress back over my head. Then I grabbed my phone from my purse and tiptoed across to the door and out.
The others were still downstairs. I could hear their voices better from the landing. Groot’s low grumble, Gloria’s pleasant alto, Hildy’s higher-pitched gurgle, and an occasional stiff comment from Vonnie.
I couldn’t hear Chip or Nina, and there was no sound from behind their door, not even when I put my ear to it.
The temptation to try the knob was too much. It turned in my hand, silently. I pushed the door open and peeked in.
Should I risk turning on a lamp?
I decided I should.
The light illuminated a room in disarray. Unmade bed, bureau drawers hanging open, closet door standing ajar.
I’d have suspected a burglary if not for one thing: there was nothing here. No clothes in the closet or in any of the drawers. No shoes on the floor, no toiletries in the attached bathroom, no suitcase or other personal belongings at all.
Looked like our conversation at the Sandbar had spooked Chip and Nina. They’d gone home and packed up their stuff and hightailed it out of Davenport. I wondered how far they’d gone before David Chang had stopped them.
This probably put the final nail in Chip’s coffin. Why would he run if he hadn’t killed Frenetta, after all? But I was here, alone, with a chance to snoop in everyone else’s rooms while they were downstairs. It seemed too good an opportunity to waste.
I crossed the landing on tiptoe.
Vonnie and Groot’s door was unlocked, as well.
I hesitated, peeling my ears for sounds from below and the indica
tion that anyone was coming upstairs. Everything was quiet. The TV was still on in the parlor.
I pushed the door open and took a couple of careful steps inside the room.
It looked a lot like ours. Same bright color scheme, same fun island-type furnishings. The bed was unmade, and on the rumpled comforter sat an open suitcase, half full. I guess maybe Vonnie and Groot had been on their way back to Tallahassee this morning, and their leaving had been derailed by the death.
The attached bathroom was white, with palm trees on the shower curtain. (Ours was sand-colored with sea stars, in case you wondered.) There was a toiletries bag sitting on the back of the toilet. I felt like I had already spent too much time in here, but I tiptoed over and peeked in. The usual array of creams and hair brushes greeted me, along with a couple of medicine bottles, of the prescription and non-prescription kind. I guess when folks get older, they get more aches and pains.
I wanted to dig through and see what the various pills were for—whether any of them were sleeping medicines—but the police had already been through the B and B. I had noticed a slight disarray in our stuff when I came home yesterday afternoon. They would have checked the medications. Lou Engebretsen wasn’t stupid.
Then again, Groot and Vonnie didn’t strike me as stupid, either. If one of their medications had been used to kill Frenetta, it wouldn’t be sitting here in plain sight.
I tiptoed back out and closed the door gently behind me. There was no activity on the stairs or landing, and the TV was still droning.
I moved a couple of steps to my left, and tried the last door.
The knob turned, and the door opened. I ducked into Gloria and Hildy’s room for a quick look around.
It was painted tropical pink, and I took a moment to be abjectly grateful that Frenetta hadn’t given it to me and Rafe. It was a little like being stuck inside a giant Pepto-Bismol bottle.
Other than that, it looked like our room, and like Vonnie and Groot’s. Frenetta must have gotten a buy-one, get-one deal on white wicker furniture when she put the place together.
In here, the bed was neatly made and everything was in its place. Gloria and Hildy must not be planning to move on, because there was no suitcase in sight. Maybe they had booked the whole summer.
Wonder whether Vonnie would kick them out early?
The bedside table on the left had a paperback on it. Not a Botticelli. Gloria—or maybe Hildy—liked thrillers. The cover had a picture of a small dark figure inside a tunnel, along with one of those generic thriller titles in big letters. Payback or Runaway or Malice.
Under the book was a sheaf of papers. I lifted the book and peered down.
It was a legal contract, for the transfer of property. The address of the B and B was written on the property line, and the price was a cool million and a half. The parties to the contract were Gloria Duncan and Hildy McLeod as the buyers, Frenetta Wallin as seller. The contract date was three days ago.
I flipped to the last page, and the signatures.
Gloria’s and Hildy’s were there, duly notarized. So was Frenetta’s.
Before I had time to process the information, let alone think through the repercussions of what it might mean—Frenetta was selling the B and B to Gloria and Hildy?—the door to the corridor opened with a faint squeak. I spun around to see a dark figure filling the doorway.
Chapter Nine
“I’ll take that,” Vonnie said, holding out her hand.
She wasn’t actually filling the doorway. For a second, it just seemed like she did. It was probably the pistol in her hand.
“Where did you get that?” I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was huge and gray and looking down the barrel, I could almost see a bullet with my name on it.
I’d been shot once before. It hurts. When Vonnie wiggled the gun suggestively, I handed over the paperwork without demurring.
She glanced at the front page, and her mouth curved. “Thank you very much.”
Very polite of her. I couldn’t bring myself to return the favor and tell her she was welcome. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said instead.
“What...? Oh. Have you seen the crime rates in Tallahassee lately?” She shook her head. “The town’s going to hell in a hand basket. Hoodlums everywhere, with guns and knives. You can’t be too careful.”
I guess you couldn’t. “Is that why you killed your sister?” Because she had to have killed Frenetta, if she was up here with a gun. Why else would she be threatening me?
“I don’t know what you mean,” Vonnie said. “I caught you burglarizing one of my guest rooms.”
Well, yes. Technically, she had. And technically, that was a defense of sorts.
“So you didn’t kill your sister?”
“Why would I kill my sister?” Vonnie wanted to know.
“I don’t know. Maybe because she was selling the house—this house, the one you both grew up in—and you didn’t want her to?”
Her eyes flickered. I pressed the advantage I figured I had. “She got the house when your mother died. You didn’t, even though you were the eldest.”
Pure guesswork. I had no idea whether she was older than Frenetta or not, but I thought she might be, since she’d married first. At any rate, she didn’t contradict me.
“Frenetta was always mother’s favorite. Even when we were small. Mother always liked her better.”
“You must have hated that,” I said sympathetically, even as I wondered whether Mother liked Catherine better than me.
She probably did. Catherine hadn’t gotten herself knocked up out of wedlock and ended up marrying Rafe Collier. Although if Mother had a favorite among her children, I was pretty sure it was Dix. I’m certain she liked Sheila, Dix’s late wife, better than either me or Catherine.
But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. I turned my attention back to Vonnie and the gun. “She shouldn’t have treated you differently. You were sisters. Equal. But Frenetta got the house, and what did you get?”
“Nothing,” Vonnie said through clenched teeth.
“It wasn’t fair.”
She shook her head. “And she didn’t just live in it. She rented it out! Strangers, sleeping in my room!”
She directed a fulminating glance over my shoulder, into Gloria and Hildy’s room. Gloria and Hildy must have been here already when Groot and Vonnie showed up, so Vonnie couldn’t have her old room for the weekend.
“And then you realized she was thinking of selling.”
“She called me,” Vonnie said bitterly. “Out of the blue. We hadn’t spoken to one another in years, and she calls to tell me a real estate developer had made an offer for the house and the land. She was going to sell my house, and for a lot of money!”
Good for her.
I didn’t say it, since I figured the sentiment wouldn’t go over well. I did endeavor to keep her talking, since the longer we stood here, the better the chances that someone would come up the stairs and see what was going on. Or that Rafe would wake up and notice I wasn’t in bed, and come looking for me.
In fact, there might be something I could do about that. I still had my phone. I’d put it in my pocket before picking up the sales contract from the bedside table. It was still there. If I could speed-dial Rafe’s phone by touch, without looking at the display, and wake him up...
I slipped a hand into the folds of my skirt, and from there into the pocket. To distract Vonnie, I used my other hand to point to the papers in her hand. “What’s up with that? If a developer from Atlanta wanted to buy the place, what’s that contract all about?”
“Everyone wanted to buy it!” Vonnie shrieked, practically frothing at the mouth. I kept my eyes on her, while inside my pocket, I was frantically trying to push the right buttons on the phone. Which, let me tell you, is a lot harder to do when you can’t see what you’re doing.
Eventually, I thought I had done it, and pressed the slick screen in the area where I thought I was making the call. And then I peeled my ears for t
he sound of Rafe’s phone ringing in the other room.
I used to have my phone set to play the Hallelujah Chorus. That was last year. Now, I’ve programmed different ringtones for different people. Detective Grimaldi’s is the theme from Hawaii Five-O. Mother’s is a certain melody snipped from The Wizard of Oz, better left unnamed. And Rafe’s is the wedding march, at least this week. Now that we were married, I should probably program something else.
If I ever got the chance.
This was a hell of a way to start married life. Being held at gunpoint during the honeymoon.
I listened for the sound of Mendelssohn from across the hall, but heard nothing.
Dammit, if not Rafe, who had I called?
Or maybe I hadn’t called anybody. Maybe I’d just started a scroll through my images, or an ebook, or something like that.
But just in case someone was listening, I kept the phone on. If Vonnie shot me and buried my body in the sand, at least someone would know what happened. I had no way of knowing who, but somebody.
“You sister signed that.” I pointed to the contract. “She sold the house. So why did you say that you wouldn’t? It’s already done.”
“Not after I burn the contract,” Vonnie said. “Then it’ll be their word against mine. And without my sister’s signature, what can they do?”
Not a whole lot, I imagined. If Vonnie had possession of the house, and Gloria and Hildy didn’t have possession of the contract, they might not be able to do anything. Unless there was another copy somewhere.
“So you killed your sister so she wouldn’t sell the house,” I said. “When did you find out that she’d sold it already?”
Vonnie looked like she was grinding her teeth, but the gun didn’t waver. “I thought I was stopping her from agreeing to sell the house to that little rat Chip. She kept saying no, but I was afraid, sooner or later, she’d give in. She always wanted children—” her expression said that she couldn’t imagine why, “and he was ingratiating himself. He could be charming when he wanted to be.”
Busman's Honeymoon (Savannah Martin Mystery #10.5) Page 9
