“Not hungry, Mrs. Wentworth?” Cathy asked when she returned to their table, noting how Lilliana had left most of her food on her plate.
“I’m afraid not.” Then, wanting to reassure the owner of the café, she added, “The food was delicious. Can I have a to-go box?”
“Sure ‘nough.” Cathy left to get the box.
“Is that when Pieter moved into the retirement home?” she asked.
“I think so,” Sam said. “It might have been built by then.”
“I’d better get back to the store,” Jaclyn said. “Should I put aside some of those chocolates for you?”
“Not too many,” Lilliana said, but her mind wasn’t on chocolates. It was on the visit she needed to make to Chief Cartwright.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE next day, Lilliana sat in the craft room, waiting, a mystery by Robert B. Parker in her lap. She’d brought it to pass the time, but she was too nervous to read. She’d overheard Pieter in the dining room at breakfast say he was going to spend the afternoon making more pots, so she’d hurried to be there right after lunch. Of course, afternoon could mean twelve-thirty or four o’clock. It was already after two.
She needn’t have worried. The door to the craft room nudged open slowly as Pieter backed into it, a box of clay in his hands. He almost dropped the box when he saw her sitting there.
“Come to watch me make your pots?” he asked as he put the heavy carton on the table.
“Actually, I came to talk to you.”
His bushy white eyebrows lifted. “About what?”
“About the ranch.”
Pieter pried open the carton and lifted out a block of clay sealed in clear plastic packaging. “What ranch?”
“The ranch you bought from Fox Fordyce.” Lilliana put her book on the table and leaned toward Pieter. “The ranch where you lost most of your savings when the drought hit. The ranch where your wife died in an ice storm.”
Pieter’s brow creased as his eyes darkened with anger. “She knew,” he said darkly as he broke off a piece of clay from the block.
“Who knew?” Lilliana’s heart tripped in her chest. She needed to get him to say it.
“Fox Fordyce,” he growled. “She knew the drought wouldn’t support enough cattle on the ranch to earn a living. She knew I knew nothing about raising beef cattle on an open range, that it wasn’t anything like raising dairy cattle. She took advantage of my ignorance, told me how wonderful it was that someone like me wanted to buy the ranch.”
He punched the lump of clay with his fists, grabbed it and kneaded it as if getting revenge on it.
“And then she came back to town,” Lilliana prompted.
Pieter nodded. “She came back to town. Started talking about having the rodeo on the old ranch. Again she was going to make money from it, and I would have nothing.”
“You couldn’t stand the idea of that happening.”
He slapped the clay hard. “Everyone treated her like a queen, like a celebrity. That big article in the paper, the television people. No one said anything about her taking everything from me. Including my Anna.” Pieter sobbed.
Lilliana was afraid she was going to have to probe more directly, but now that Pieter had started speaking, she tried to be patient.
Pieter’s face reddened. “I had to make her pay. I couldn’t let her get away with it. So I shot her.” His hands clenched into fists as he pressed his lips together.
“Where did you get the gun?” Lilliana asked. She wanted to tie up all the details.
“The gun?”
“The gun you shot her with. It wasn’t yours, was it?” Miss Marple always got the killer to confess easily. As a matter of fact, they usually couldn’t wait to tell her how they did it—if she hadn’t figured it out long before. Lilliana was going to have to study Miss Marple’s techniques more closely.
“No, it wasn’t mine. Rebecca told me about the gun she kept in her nightstand, asked me if I thought they’d evict her if someone found out. It wasn’t hard for me to get it when she was otherwise occupied.”
“So you took Rebecca Cushing’s pistol with the express purpose of killing Fox Fordyce.”
“I did,” Pieter said with resolve. Then a startled look came over his face as he realized what he’d done, quickly followed by clouds of anger. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? Getting me to confess, I mean. You probably think you can get in good with the police chief, get your boyfriend out of jail. Well, you’re not going to have a chance to tell anyone.”
Pieter lunged in her direction, hands outstretched, and wrapped them around her throat so tightly Lilliana didn’t have a chance to scream. His thumbs dug into her windpipe as firmly as they’d dug into the clay.
She pushed at him with her hands as she tried to get a breath, but Pieter was too strong for her. She tried to kick him, but couldn’t get enough leverage to put any strength behind the effort. Pieter loomed over her, heaving deep breaths as he strained to strangle her.
“Stop right there,” Chief Cartwright’s voice boomed from behind her.
Startled, Pieter loosened his grip just enough for Lilliana to escape his grasp. She rose to her feet, her chest heaving with the effort to draw air into her lungs. Cartwright stood in front of the open door to the closet, gun drawn and aimed at Pieter.
“You might have come out of the closet a little sooner,” Lilliana said as she rubbed her neck.
“Sorry, Mrs. Wentworth. I wanted to make sure Mr. Joncker had said all he was going to.” In his firmest tone, he addressed Pieter. “Pieter Joncker, you’re under arrest for the murder of Fox Fordyce.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
LILLIANA waited nervously in the lobby of Town Hall, feeling an urge to chew on her fingernails. She tried pacing instead, but her legs felt wobbly, and she feared she might fall if she kept it up. Chief Cartwright had taken Pieter Joncker to the basement, where there were a couple of holding cells for keeping drunks overnight or prisoners destined for the county jail until they could be transported.
She hadn’t realized Christopher was still there until the chief told her he’d be releasing him immediately. How could she explain the suspicions she’d had that led to his arrest? Would he forgive her? Or would he be angry? Justifiably so, of course. Lack of trust was the quickest way to kill a relationship.
A humming noise came from the direction of the elevator, and her heart pounded in her chest. When the annunciator chimed signaling the car’s arrival, her head swam, plunging her consciousness to a location somewhere around her knees. She took a slow, deep breath. She could do this. She must do this, regardless of the outcome.
The elevator door opened, exposing a slightly disheveled Christopher MacAlistair, his hair ruffled, clothes wrinkled, and a layer of stubble on his face, so different from the elegantly groomed man she’d come to know. But when he smiled at her, he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
“Oh, Christopher, can you ever forgive me?”
His smile faltered, causing her heart to trip over the doubt he must feel. Glancing over at DeeDee behind the reception desk, he said, “Let’s find a place to talk.”
He took her hand and led her out of the building, then continued down Pulaski Street. Dark clouds accompanied by the rumble of thunder were rolling in from the mountains.
“It looks like it’s going to rain,” he said.
“Yes, it does.” It was the best Lilliana could do under the circumstances. She wasn’t sure whether to launch into her explanation or wait for him to ask. A cold wind blasted them as they emerged from the shelter of the side of Cathy’s Café. Lightning flashed overhead; thunder assaulted their ears.
“We’d better hurry.” He pulled her across Main Street, the wind whipping through their hair. Large drops of rain plopped on her face as she looked up at the sky, onyx black and angry. He hurried her up the drive as the drops became more frequent. The cold rain fell on her shoulders, splattered the legs of her pants. She shivered.
&nb
sp; The building wasn’t far now, but they’d have to hurry if they didn’t want to be drenched by the storm. A stroke of lightning split the sky, blinded her. She stumbled, and Christopher caught her in his arms, steadied her, then pulled her toward the gazebo.
Just in time, as it turned out. The heavens opened, rain falling as if dumped from some celestial bucket. Pea-sized hail rattled on the roof of the gazebo as thunder shook the ground.
They sat inside the storm, huddled together. She took comfort from the fact that Christopher wrapped her in his arms. He couldn’t be too angry if he was holding her, could he?
Like most desert thunderstorms, this one ebbed as quickly as it had swept in from the mountains, settled into a gentle rain that would most likely stop in a few minutes. As if realizing they didn’t have much time before other residents might emerge from the retirement home, Christopher asked, “Lil? Cartwright confirmed he arrested me based on your suspicions. Why did you think I killed Fox?”
The moment she’d been dreading had finally come. Lilliana twisted in his arms, pulled back a bit so she could face him. “Your explanation of telling the funeral director about a burned out light bulb didn’t quite make sense. When he told me the real reason you spoke to him was to ask for a copy of her death certificate, I had to find out why.”
Christopher hung his head.
“Then I found out about the life insurance policy”—Lilliana suddenly realized she couldn’t possibly tell him how she’d found out about it, and she dare not mention the painting for the same reason—“and it made sense. Unfortunately, what also made sense was that two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars is a very strong motive to kill someone.”
“I should have known you were too smart to believe my lie.” His eyes were still looking at the floor of the gazebo as he said this. He raised them to meet hers. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Lil. I thought you might not understand.”
“I still don’t,” she said. The rain had stopped now, leaving the desert air fresh and cool and filled with the scent of creosote bushes. “Why did Fox Fordyce make you the beneficiary of her life insurance?”
His pulled his arms from around her, leaned back, folded them protectively across his chest. “On our way to Arizona, we stopped in Las Vegas for a few days. Not exactly on the way, but Fox’s son works in a hospital in Henderson, and she wanted to see him. When we met for dinner one night, Fox had a vicious argument with her son. He never approved of her lifestyle, and when she told him she was traveling with a man from Scotland, someone she’d met at a bar, he became outraged and stormed out. He called her several times a day trying to persuade her to ‘grow up.’ As you can imagine, she didn’t care for being scolded by her own son.
“After a night in the casinos filled with gambling and drinking, she decided she would get her revenge by changing the beneficiary on her life insurance. Since she didn’t have any other relatives, and I was there, she decided to make me the beneficiary. At the time, I agreed with her.”
He looked at Lilliana shamefacedly. “I must confess, I was also drinking that night and might not have been using my best judgment. She insisted we contact the insurance company right away, which she did.”
“She didn’t change it back after she threw you out?” Lilliana asked.
Christopher shook his head. “She still hadn’t made her peace with her son, and I suppose she had the same problem as in Las Vegas. She didn’t have anyone else to make beneficiary. And, I’m ashamed to admit, the idea of inheriting all that money was a great temptation.
“Traveling gets expensive, and I do like to travel. The money would allow me to keep my casita here and still continue to see the world.”
Alarmed, she had to ask, “Are you planning on leaving?”
A gentle smile played across his face. “Not any time soon. Unless you want me to go.”
Lilliana was quiet for a while as she reflected on what he’d told her. Though greed wasn’t a positive character trait, she supposed no one was perfect. Not even herself. “No, I don’t want you to go.
“I’m sorry I had you arrested. I should have asked you about the insurance before I went to the chief. But I was afraid you were one of those men who attach themselves to rich elderly women, hoping to take advantage of them for their money. Not that I have a lot of money, but you might have thought I did.”
She hesitated before saying plainly the last thing on her mind, but now was not the time to hold back. There had been too much of that. “I thought you wanted me for money, not for love.”
Christopher unfolded his arms, took her hands in his, and quoted in his marvelous rich voice:
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
Lilliana, recognizing the lines from Hamlet, laughed and asked, “Are you Hamlet or Polonius?”
Christopher laughed in return, a nervous laugh, before speaking. “Hamlet, I hope. And I hope you will be my Ophelia—without the madness or the dying.” He smiled at her, an anxious, waiting kind of smile.
The sun was breaking through the clouds, but it was Christopher’s words that made her heart leap. With reckless abandon, she replied, “I just might be mad already.”
The worry left his face. “Then we shall be mad together.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
FOR the first time in ages, Lilliana had put on both a dress and makeup. She peered into the mirror, trying to decide if she’d used too much eyeliner and mascara, if the lipstick shade she’d chosen was a tad too vibrant for a woman of her age, or the blush she’d brushed on her cheeks looked like clown makeup. She had no idea what kind of lighting they would have in the television room, and she knew how washed out a woman could look under bright lights. On the other hand, she didn’t want to look like a hussy up close.
She backed away from the mirror for a different perspective, decided her face would do, and then began the same scrutiny of the dress. She’d chosen an electric blue cocktail dress, thinking to match her eyes, but the color was closer to Christopher’s than her own. Lilliana’s eyes were more of a cornflower blue, lighter and not half as arresting as his. The dress was very pretty, though, and well worth the extra expense.
Finally, with everything else in place, she reached up and removed the band from the long gray tresses gathered at the back of her neck. In the heat of the summer, she generally kept her hair bound up, but tonight she wanted to wear it loose. She picked up her hairbrush and stroked the strands, coaxing them into gentle waves that flowed over her shoulders.
A knock on her door startled her, even though she was expecting it, and her heartbeat changed from a waltz to a tarantella. She put the brush down and went to answer it.
“Good evening, Lil.”
Christopher was dressed in a charcoal gray suit, white shirt, and, as if he’d planned it, a tie of a color that matched her dress. He carried a soft-sided black travel tote. His beard and hair were freshly trimmed, and as he smiled at her, Lilliana thought he had to be the handsomest man in Rainbow Ranch.
“I’m ready. Let me get my purse.” She hurried to the bedroom to retrieve it, then the two of them made their way to the common area of the retirement home.
The cacophony coming from the entrance to the television room told them the magnitude of the crowd before they were close enough to see it. Once they reached the doorway, the two of them paused, looking for a non-existent seat or two. Inside, it was standing room only, with people lined up along the walls at the back and to the side. Lilliana felt a swarm of butterflies take flight inside her. She hadn’t expected this many people to show up for the talent show.
Mary stood at the door, a stack of programs in hand. She handed one to Lilliana.
“It looks like we’ll have to stand,” Christopher said unnecessarily. He sidled along the back wall until he found a space big enough for the two of them to occupy if they stood very close to one another. She had no pr
oblem with that.
A microphone and speakers were set up in front of the large television screen, and the portable spotlight that shone on it made Lilliana grateful she’d put on the makeup.
Russell Ellison, owner of the retirement community, stepped up to the mic. She was surprised to see him at the event. He was rarely there in the evening. “I’m glad to see such a terrific turnout tonight for our first annual talent show. I expect to discover we have many talented people in our community. Remember to applaud loudly for your favorites because prizes will be awarded based on your response.”
Prizes? Lilliana hadn’t realized this was a competition. Not that it mattered to her whether she won a prize or not. She only cared about winning prizes where her African violets were concerned.
“First up is Bernadine Meade, performing a song and dance number,” Ellison announced. The audience responded with clapping and whistles as Bernadine made her way to the front of the room.
Christopher leaned over and whispered in her ear. “When do we perform?” When she didn’t respond right away, he gestured toward the program in her hand.
“Oh.” She’d forgotten all about the program. She scanned it quickly, then swallowed hard. “We’re last.” She wasn’t sure she could bear the tension all the way through the show. Christopher dipped his head to indicate he’d heard her.
Bernadine stood in the spotlight, wearing a top hat and carrying a cane. She looked questioningly at Ellison, who nodded as a go-ahead signal. Bernadine cleared her throat, then, in a scratchy voice sang, “Dah dah da-da-da, dah dah da-da-da,” the easily recognizable opening to “New York, New York.”
She swayed from one side to the other as she sang the lyrics, tapping the cane in time to the music. About halfway through, she added a sashay from one side of the “stage” to the other, and finally, toward the end, finished up with chorus line kicks that were only about a quarter as high as those of the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes. It was a good thing she had the cane, since she was wheezing as she sang the last notes and lost her balance. Bernadine was only saved from an embarrassing—and possibly harmful—fall by smashing the cane on the floor and leaning on it.
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