Once we were outside, I turned to Max and said, “Max, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Is Dora insane?”
“Nope. As near as I can tell, she’s major-league clever. And you never know—she may just pull it off. I don’t envy McGowan one bit.” We walked a little farther. “I have a question for you,” he said. “Do you have any idea how Maisy discovered that Dora used to be called Alice?”
“No. I wondered about that, too.”
Max shrugged. “Since Maisy’s dead and Dora’s not talking, I guess we’ll never know.”
Recalling how I’d nearly stumbled when Rowcliff had asked me what I knew about blackmailing, I said, “It’s nearly impossible to maintain a lie indefinitely, so if Dora tripped up and Maisy noticed, that might have been the beginning of the end. Maisy grabbed the end of a thread and Dora’s story started unraveling.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It probably happened just that way.”
“Makes you think, doesn’t it, Max?”
Later that afternoon, I sat at my computer, brought up a browser, and searched for the name “Alice Reddy” and “most wanted.”
There were eighteen hits. I shook my head. “It’s true,” I whispered.
The top listing took me to a site run by the post office’s investigative arm, and when I clicked on Alice Reddy’s name, Dora’s photo appeared as clear as day.
I stared at it for a long time.
Another site showed the criminal trial’s docket number, and when I clicked on the entry, up came a summary of the court proceedings. I backed out of the official record, clicking instead on an Oregon newspaper article.
Embedded in the article was another photograph of Dora. In this one, she was standing next to her lawyer outside the courthouse, earnestly staring into the camera.
The caption read: “ ‘I can’t imagine how this terrible misunderstanding occurred. It must be identity theft,’ Alice Reddy said upon leaving the courthouse. She was released on $500,000 bail.”
Another article was about how she’d jumped bail.
I closed the browser, sickened at her pretense, disgusted with myself that I’d fallen victim to her charm.
“People see only what they are prepared to see,” Emerson wrote. I wondered what had motivated him to record that observation in his journal. Had he cared for someone who had deceived him and then, later, tried to analyze his role in the duplicity? Had I missed cues that could have—that should have—warned me that Dora was a fake? There was no way to know. It hadn’t ever occurred to me that she was a phony. I wanted a friend, and she was kind, so I perceived a friend.
Was there a lesson to be learned from this experience? Yes. If people see only what they are prepared to see, the lesson is to prepare to see the truth.
I picked up the phone to call Ty.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
T
y dropped a copy of a U.S. newspaper on my chest. “Check it out,” he said.
I looked at him, shielding my eyes from the blazing Bahamian sun, and said, “I don’t want to work that hard. You read it to me.”
He picked it up, flipped it open, and said, “It’s just two sentences. It says, ‘Alice Reddy, also known as Dora Reynolds, found guilty last month of first-degree murder, today retained well-known celebrity attorney George Norwalk. Norwalk announced his intention to file an appeal immediately and expressed confidence that “This dreadful miscarriage of justice will soon be overturned.” ’ In other words, the show goes on.”
“Wow. I thought it was over.”
“You kidding? With people like Dora, it’s never over.”
“Do you think she’ll win her appeal?”
“No chance. There’s too much forensic evidence.”
“Like the cyanide in the Tupperware container she left under my sink?”
“Right. No one will think it’s credible that her fingerprints are on the container because she thought she heard water dripping and moved it aside so she could check your pipes. Give me a break.” Ty laughed.
“One look at Dora and you know you’re not dealing with a plumber,” I agreed.
My pulse began to race as I recalled Detective Rowcliff telling me that they’d found the cyanide in my kitchen. Within an hour of getting permission from the police, I’d discarded every food product in my kitchen—everything. Within another hour, I’d scoured every flat surface with bleach. By the end of the day, every dish, pot and pan, utensil, and glass had been washed.
“Her lawyer’s just grandstanding. I doubt there are any issues to appeal. The case was tight—and Dora’s guilty as hell.”
I relaxed a little at his words. She’d been convicted, and there was no reason to think it would be any different next time around.
“I wonder how Hank is doing.”
“You saw that photo of him in the Seacoast Star,” Ty said.
“Yeah. He looked brutalized.”
“He’ll get over it. We all get over it.” Ty stared out over the ocean, maybe thinking of Aunt Trina or some distant hurt that he’d had to overcome.
I focused on the timbre of the waves as they crashed and receded, the sound of time.
“Ty?”
“What?”
“How many little umbrellas do we have so far?”
“Not counting the Planter’s Punch by your side? Twenty-one.”
“Excellent,” I said, and rolled over, reaching for his hand and holding on tight.
Deadly AppraisalCover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Deadly Appraisal Page 31
