by Mary Bowers
“Come on, Ed,” Teddy said, “don’t be shy. The gang’s all here and we’re planning the shoot. You do want input on the shoot, don’t you?”
“There will be no shoot. This is a private investigation for a very private family.”
“Oh, Tiffany’s already given her approval.”
Ed nearly cried. When there was a knock on his car’s roof, he wasn’t even startled. He just turned his head slowly and gazed into the eyes of a Paradise Island homeowner in running shorts who was hanging over his car, looking sternly into the passenger compartment.
“May I help you?” the man said heavily. “This is a gated community. How did you get in?”
“I’m working on a project at one of the houses here.”
“On a Sunday?” The man stood up and was suddenly holding a cellphone.
Ed regarded him with interest as he dialed 9-1-1. He tried to speak, but the fit specimen in the running shorts told him to explain it to the cops when they got there.
Even that seemed like a better idea than going back around the corner and joining whatever was going on at the Pissarro house.
After listening to the homeowner’s insulting characterization of him for thirty or forty seconds, Ed held out his hand for the phone and said, “May I? I think I can clear this up without the police getting involved.”
“And now he’s trying to steal my phone,” the man told the dispatcher. “You’d better get somebody here quick. He’s probably looking to hijack a car. You should see what he’s driving. I think it was green, once.”
The dispatcher’s memory seemed to stir. She began to ask questions. The man listened skeptically for a moment, answering, “Yes,” a few times, studying the strange driver and car all the while. Then looked directly at Ed and said, “I’ll ask him. Is your name Ed Darby-Garby?”
Ed nodded silently.
The homeowner handed the phone over and said, “She wants to talk to you.”
* * * * *
“You brought the cops?” Teddy asked, bright with amusement.
“And Trixie Dare’s Banana Delight,” Ed said with conscious irony. “Dobbs, will you put this into the refrigerator?”
His assistant came forward and obediently took the cold, hard-to-balance, foil-covered oblong pan out of Ed’s hands. It had handicapped him and made him feel ridiculous, and kept him from pulling the shoulder strap of his satchel back up to his shoulder when it had dropped heavily onto his forearm. He felt he couldn’t deal with anything until he was rid of the pan, but once it was gone and the shoulder strap was back where it belonged, he didn’t feel any better.
“Trixie’s a blast, isn’t she?” Dobbs asked, getting nothing but a deadpan look from Ed. “And I love this banana thing. Thanks for bringing it.”
Ed refused to be distracted by banana things. He gathered his dignity and addressed the room. “For those of you who haven’t met him, this is a member of our local law enforcement corps, Detective Burton Bruno.” He lowered his voice a notch and gravely added, “He’s a homicide detective.”
They laughed. Even, after a moment, Bruno himself.
“No, really,” Ed found himself saying, “he really is.”
“Come on in, Detective,” Carly Nicholson said. “Meet the ghost squad. Want some coffee? Banana Delight?”
Leaving Ed feeling like the only one who hadn’t been invited to the party, Bruno went to the kitchen for coffee while they all started making banana jokes. Ed noticed Dobbs shy away from the detective and keep his head down, but he found that reaction more natural than the way the cast and crew of Haunt or Hoax? were behaving. Even Porter seemed chummy with the cop, and was neither jumping nor barking, for once. He just seemed happy to see him. He had not, Ed realized, come chugging forward to greet Ed the way he usually did, despite the fact that Ed was bringing food. As dog behavior goes, it was a slap in the face.
After standing in the hall between the foyer and the kitchen for a few minutes, indignant but ignored, Ed walked past the babbling throng and let himself out onto the lanai. Even the door alarm didn’t attract anybody’s attention to him. Well, at least it would be quiet out there, he thought, but he still felt snubbed.
He sat down at the table and listened to the waters of the fountain and the hot tub. When the door alarm gave its three little peeps again, he didn’t even look around to see who it was.
Detective Bruno ambled up and set a coffee cup down on the table. Then he let himself down into an iron chair across the table from Ed.
“You want to tell me what’s going on here?” he asked amiably. “You didn’t say anything about all this when you turned the camera over to us.”
“I didn’t know any of this was going to happen then,” Ed snapped. Then he sat up tall and declared, “I have lost control of the situation and am considering retiring from it altogether.”
“Does the Pissarro family know your friends have invaded the house?”
“They are not my friends, they are my colleagues. There is a world of difference. And as for the family, yes, they know. Dobbs has practically been living here, and they don’t seem to mind a bit. He actually was living here when he was investigating the haunting for Jessamine Pissarro. She went to him after I refused to take her case. Hey, wait a minute,” Ed said, stopped in his mental tracks. “Dobbs was living here. He was here, in the house, the night Jessamine Pissarro died. Was he? Or wasn’t he. He was?”
Bruno gave an almost imperceptible nod, then silently gazed at him.
“He said he had other business to attend to in St. Augustine,” Ed went on. “I didn’t believe him. I thought he just made that part up to make himself look important. You told him he had to come back and be interviewed, didn’t you?”
Bruno nodded. “After she was found dead, he skedaddled. Actually, I suppose you could say he deserves a little credit. He’s the one who called it in when Mrs. Pissarro didn’t come home from the beach, after going off alone and (as he put it) ‘upset.’”
“Did he go to the beach himself to look for her?”
“Nope. And by the time the guard came up with contact information for Tiffany Pissarro, and she came and let us into the house, he’d packed up his suitcases and cleared out.”
“Omigod,” Ed said, staring at the fountain. “What’s his game?”
“You tell me,” Bruno said quietly.
“I consider this very suspicious. Very suspicious indeed. And that business partner of Alan Pissarro’s. Did you know he wants a séance?”
Bruno stared. “Roy Angers? No, I didn’t know that. What for?”
“He needs to ask his dead business partner a few questions,” Ed said drily. “Men,” he added pointedly, “never ask for séances. I am a professional. I know.”
Bruno took a sip of coffee, sat back and made himself as comfortable as he could in the iron chair, then said, “Why don’t you start at the beginning. Tell me what you’ve been up to since you turned over the video. Take your time.”
Ed stared, decided there was no reason not to, went back in his mind to the night he’d called Dobbs for the first time with Taylor sitting in his office, and told him everything.
* * * * *
Ed hadn’t realized how trying the last day and a half had been; by the time he was done talking about it, he felt eviscerated. He stared at Bruno for a few moments, then made a quick decision.
“Go away.”
The detective, didn’t seem surprised but also didn’t move.
Ed took it down a notch. “I mean go into the house or something. I have to make a phone call. I can’t deal with this alone anymore. I need Taylor Verone. Don’t be suspicious if I sneak around the side of the house and leave. I need to talk to her, but I’ll be back. I promise.”
After giving it brief consideration, Bruno stood up and took his coffee cup. “The one I really want to talk to is your friend, The Marvelous Dobbs. No offense, but I don’t think you know anything useful to me beyond that video you turned over. Go ahead, call Ms. Ve
rone. It’s the most sensible thing you could possibly do. She’ll settle you down, but I want to talk to both of you later.” He leaned in. “You will be back?”
“I swear.”
“Some time this afternoon, not sometime next week?”
“Absolutely.”
“By the way,” Bruno added with renewed interest, “why are you here? You obviously want no part of this.”
“I let a client down. At least, I let a potential client down. I do have a conscience.”
“I know about that part. Are you and that gang in there really going to do an episode of that TV show on this?”
“I sincerely hope not. I will try to discourage them, but on the organizational chart of this enterprise, I seem to sit one level below the dog.”
Bruno tried to swallow a smile. “Well, see what you can do about that. I don’t need them getting into my hair just now. Go ahead and call your girlfriend. Tell her hi.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Ed said automatically, but he was already going down his contact list for the V’s.
Ed didn’t know whether Bruno had been joking, but the first thing he did when Taylor answered was to give her Bruno’s regards.
“Oh, Ed, what have you gotten yourself into now? You’re with Bruno? Again?”
“Taylor, are you at home now? I’ve got to talk to you. Now. I’m on Paradise Island, so I’m not far away.”
“You’re on Paradise Island? Why?”
It was all too involved to explain, but he remembered something that would distract her, and he quickly told her about Roy Angers’s offer of a donation to Orphans of the Storm.
“How much?” she asked, forgetting everything else.
“I don’t know. He’s not a nice man. Charge him a lot.”
“Charge him? For what?”
“Um . . . .”
He managed to put her off until he could get to her house, and taking his spy satchel, he slid around the side of Jessamine Pissarro’s house and drove away.
Chapter 12
At Cadbury House, Taylor Verone and Michael Utley were just finishing a leisurely brunch on the veranda. Before them, a misty view of the river spread itself wide from the north to the south. Beyond the barrier island on the other side of the river, a blue strip of ocean glistened on the horizon. Only the lapping of the water against the seawall proved that the vision was real and not a masterful painting. Even the egret on the tiny island to the north was absolutely motionless, watching for prey in the water.
The fundraiser of the day before had been exhausting but very successful, and they had been wrapped in the afterglow of a job well done. Today, all they needed to do was process the adoption paperwork for a few animals and finish the bookkeeping for Monday’s bank deposit, and they could take their time with that. Ed’s call came just as the coffee was getting cold.
“That was Ed,” Taylor told Michael after she ended the call.
“I kinda figured,” he replied. “At first I thought you were talking to a woman, from the sound of the voice. He’s a little pitchy today.”
“He’s on the verge of hysteria, as usual. He’s coming over.”
They looked at one another, still cocooned in the peace of a quiet Sunday morning. That was about to change, and they both regretted it.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said.
“You’re a very good friend to have,” Michael said, and he gave her a little kiss.
“He didn’t say much, but I gathered it was something about the Pissarro situation. He was on Paradise Island. Want to stick around and see what he’s up to?”
Michael considered. He could tell she wanted him to stay, and even though he wasn’t interested in whatever was blowing Ed’s mind this time, he said, “Sure.”
“You’re a very good friend to have, too,” she said, knowing he was only doing this for her. She gave him a little kiss in return.
As they gathered their dishes onto trays to bring them in, she said, “Oh, by the way, he mentioned he’s got a new donor for Orphans. Somebody not very nice who I should get as much money out of as I can.”
“Well, at least that part’s promising,” Michael commented, and he held the french door open for her to precede him into the house.
* * * * *
Ed came into Cadbury House with electricity snapping all around him.
“Where’s your cat?” he asked without preamble. “We’re going to need her.”
“Oh, no, we’re not,” Taylor said calmly. “Come in, relax, put that bag down over there . . . .” She paused, staring at the spy satchel for a moment.
“Yes, it’s the same bag Matt Damon was dragging around in that movie!” he blurted, as if he wanted to fight about it.
“Really? I don’t go to the movies much. I just happen to like that bag. As I was saying, put it down. It’s making you list to one side. Lay down your troubles and your cares and come on out to the veranda with me.”
“I think we should meet in your office,” he said, setting the satchel under the sofa table. Something inside the bag shifted and made a metallic clink. “This is official business.”
“Not on a Sunday morning, it isn’t. We’re going to the veranda. Michael is already out there. It’s too nice a day to sit inside.”
“Michael is out there. Yes. Well, maybe we could benefit from his counsel. I must admit, I’m at my wit’s end. Dobbs, I’m afraid, has turned out to be a very slippery character. And now they want a séance, of all things.” He gazed at her helplessly.
“So call Purity.”
“They want you. He wants you.”
“He who?”
“Alan Pissarro’s business partner, Roy Angers. He’s heard of you, and he already rejected Purity.” He held up a hand as she started to say exactly what he knew she would say. “In return, he promises to make a donation to Orphans. He didn’t say how much, he just said ‘big.’”
She stared at him, one eyebrow arched, not liking it but forced to consider it. While she stood there staring, he whipped out a business card.
“Here’s his card. Keep it. I’ve already got his number in my Contacts. Call him and negotiate.”
She took the card with two fingers. “You bet I’ll negotiate. Come on.”
They walked out to the veranda, and as Michael stood to shake hands, Ed began to rattle and hum and gesture and emote, spilling out everything that had happened since the last time he’d seen Taylor. Around the time he started to elaborate on Dobbs, they finally managed to get him to sit down.
* * * * *
“So he was actually living with her on the day she drowned herself,” Michael said thoughtfully. “That looks bad.”
“It is bad!” Ed said, nearly standing up again. Taylor put a hand on his arm to keep him down.
“What does he say about it?” Taylor asked.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it – I didn’t know! – but Bruno is interviewing him now, and when we talk to him later, we can ask him. Bruno, I mean, though I suppose it’s indicated that I should, er, confront Dobbs himself. And I shall. I did a brief review of information available on the internet about him after we’d made the appointment to meet for coffee. What I learned only made me more uneasy, though I’m unsure how much weight to give it. Social media, I’m afraid, is the modern version of the public restroom wall, where people enjoy scribbling capricious and slanderous things as if there could be no consequences. That being the case, I don’t believe everything I see on the internet. I shall give Dobbs the benefit of the doubt, unless and until the time comes when I am compelled to place greater trust in him. If that point ever arrives, I shall have to consider very, very carefully. But I was disturbed by one claim, made by an Atlantic City female who purported to have been a client of Dobbs’s.”
“The fact that she was female being relevant here?” Michael asked with a knowing look.
“Yes. She was satisfied with the outcome of his paranormal investigation, but dissatisfied with him on, sh
all we say, a more intimate level. His on-line responses to her claims were equally disturbing, and quite unprofessional. They amounted to his sticking his tongue out at her and saying, ‘You wish.’ And then I find out that he had actually been living with the client I had summoned him to discuss! A member of the opposite sex! Without a chaperone or witness of any kind – madness! An invitation to a lawsuit. Beyond that, I consider it extremely suspicious that he never mentioned that he was there, in the house, on the day she passed over. If for no other reason than the fact that we were investigating paranormal activity in that very house, he should have told me,” he added angrily. “It certainly affects my investigation if he’s the one who killed her. Oh.” He stopped suddenly, realizing he’d verbalized the possibility for the first time. It had been lurking around in the back of his mind, and now it was out there in the open. He stared at them, popeyed.
Oddly, they seemed just a tiny bit amused.
“Yes,” Michael said after a few beats. “It certainly would.”
“So,” Taylor said, digesting it all, “the stepkids Tiffany and Kent believe their father is haunting the house, the business partner Angers thinks he’s going to get viable information from a ghost, and The Marvelous Dobbs is playing with fire, dancing around a death investigation while he tries to promote his career. And now you’ve got the whole Haunt or Hoax? crew at the house, ready to rock and roll. Even Porter.”
“Trixie was right in the first place, I’m afraid,” Ed said, summing it all up. “It’s your kind of case. Now, where’s your cat, Bastet? I’d like to see her reaction.”
“She’s sunning herself on the south veranda,” Taylor said. “Cats do that. I’m not an expert on goddesses, but it would surprise me to find out that they like to lay around on verandas and nap in the sun. She’s just a cat, Ed.”
Michael, recognizing the old battle lines shaping up, closed his eyes, shook his head, and decided to stay out of it.
“So we’re back to this,” Ed said quietly. “Denial. Well, if it keeps you in your comfort zone.” He stopped suddenly, because Taylor had popped out of her chair almost violently.
