Death on the Diagonal

by Nero Blanc

  “What about Heather and Fiona; how did they feel about Ryan?”

  Chip let out a long laugh. “If you think I’m going to rat out my sisters, you’re crazy. The fact is, I don’t care who killed Ryan. It’s over. ‘Who did it,’ is the cops’ problem. And if they try to cart one of my sisters off on a murder charge there’s going to be more Boston lawyers at Wenstarin Farms than horses. O. J.’s Dream Team will look like public defenders.”

  Rosco decided to push the edge of the envelope. “I guess you know that some people around Newcastle believe that your relationship to Ryan might have been a little closer than it should have been.”

  Chip roared with laughter at Rosco’s statement. After he’d regained his composure he said, “I haven’t heard it phrased that politely before.”

  “Well?”

  “I wouldn’t do that to my old man, either. Not in a million years. Besides, I just told you how much I detested her.” He finished his last oyster and ordered a dozen more. “How about you, Rosco? Another round?”

  “Why not?”

  “Sure, Ryan came on to me; she came on to everyone. Why the hell do you think I despised her so much? Fiona and Heather were well aware of her activities, too. Her behavior made them sick. We tried to warn the old man a few months ago, but he wouldn’t believe a word of it. It got dicey for a while there, so we let our accusations drop. The issue became a don’t-go-there kind of thing.”

  “Lever’s got this inheritance-money-is-the-root-of-all-evil theory. In cases like this, that’s often the first motive homicide detectives jump to. Do you know whether your father was planning to leave everything to Ryan—rather than to you kids?”

  Chip swigged his beer, then stared into the half-full glass. “Well, bully for Lever. The fat man got something right,” was all he said.

  CHAPTER

  23

  Daylight was waning over the still-soggy grounds of the Dew Drop Inn when Belle’s cell phone rang with its distinctive “Brinnnnggg Brinnnnggg.” The sound she’d chosen was similar to an old-fashioned rotary phone; and combined with the dusky air and the coal black hulk of the abandoned building, the effect was eerie and unsettling—as if a message from the departed were about to be delivered.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you, dear girl?” crackled through into the autumn twilight. Sara simply couldn’t get used to the notion that one could receive and transmit calls wire-free and from any location. When Belle lent her elderly friend her cell, Sara stood rooted to one spot while she talked—as if she were speaking into a wall-mounted hand-crank model with a party-line system eager to eavesdrop on the conversation.

  “Rosco and I are at the dog park—”

  “Oh, of course you are. It’s Saturday afternoon. Where else would Newcastle’s dog fanciers be other than the grounds of the old inn? I do wish one of those consortia that keeps snapping up the place would finally renovate it to its former glory. It’s a shame to allow that marvelous structure to decay. Of course, if anyone ever does return it to its heyday I would guess they would invite all of you dog fanciers to depart—”

  At this point, a prodigious amount of barking overpowered Sara’s speech. Al Lever’s canine buddy, Skippy; Abe Jones’s “lab mix,” Buster; Martha’s Peke, Princess; Stanley Hatch’s elderly collie, Ace; and Bartholomew’s beloved bulldog, Winston—accompanied by Kit and Gabby—had picked up an unfamiliar scent and were voicing their concern—or their ardent enthusiasm at discovering a new and tantalizing smell.

  “Sorry, Sara,” Belle said as the pack roared away, “I didn’t hear you.” She walked a distance from the two-legged throng, as well. Talking to a disembodied voice while in the company of flesh-and-blood companions was something she frowned upon.

  “No matter. I was simply rambling on about the Dew Drop Inn during its prime. Actually, I called to tell you that Dawn Davis just phoned to say she was not able to keep our date this evening.” Belle’s ears perked up. She looked over at Rosco, who caught her glance, and sent back a quizzical look in return. It’s Sara, Belle mouthed, then turned around and strolled farther off. The elusive Ms. Davis didn’t need to become a subject of discussion among those gathered on the inn’s sodden lawns.

  “Apparently, her odious boyfriend didn’t want her ‘hobnobbing with the rich’ . . .” Sara continued with more than a little ire. “That happens to be a quote, if you can believe such nonsense.”

  Belle frowned into the air, and the expression grew into a scowl as Sara’s voice continued:

  “Of course, the poor girl was mortified, and so attempted to pass off his remarks as a jest. But I could detect the ruse. I’m genuinely concerned about her, Belle. I understand the scheme you and Rosco suspect her of orchestrating, and I realize that I was chomping at the bit in my desire to aid you. But I cannot believe that such a sweet young lady would—” More yaps and yips and growls and snarls cut short Sara’s remarks again. Belle covered her free ear with her hand.

  “But Sara,” was her response once the hullabaloo had died down, “these are precisely the characteristics Ms. Davis presented to Walter Gudgeon: an innocent and helpless victim who only wanted a friend—”

  “And so she does,” Sara swiftly interjected. “Remember, Dawn all but stated that her boyfriend physically abuses her.”

  “That’s what she told you,” Belle persisted. “She gave Gudgeon another story: an ex-boyfriend who wouldn’t help when she most needed it.”

  “She should have kept him confined to a list of former friends,” was Sara’s swift retort. “Instead of taking him back, or whatever she did. We women can be so foolish where our hearts are concerned—”

  “But you don’t know what she said is true . . . whether he’s a current lover or not. You haven’t seen him; you don’t know if he even really exists—”

  “I know what I heard in her voice, and that’s good enough for me.”

  Belle stifled an anxious sigh. “And did you extend a second invitation to your home?” she asked in as reasonable tone as she could muster. Sara’s sudden and staunch defense of Dawn Davis was beginning to worry Belle. The pattern seemed uncomfortably similar to the ploy she’d used on Gudgeon.

  “Well, no. She told me she’d call when she learned her new work schedule—which apparently is changing.”

  “I gather Ms. Davis didn’t provide her telephone number,” Belle prompted.

  “Her boyfriend doesn’t like her receiving calls from people he doesn’t know—”

  “In other words you didn’t get it.”

  The silence on the other end of the phone was excruciating. Holding the machine close to her ear, Belle could almost visualize Sara’s proud and defiant face, and she squinted in nervous anticipation of the old lady’s patronizing response.

  “I did not choose to pry any further, Belle. To do so would only have added to her discomfort.”

  Belle did her best to conceal her exasperation. “But don’t you see, Sara, this is the same approach she used on Mr. Gudgeon—”

  “What the young lady is alleged to have done in the past, and what my present experience of her is, are two very different things—”

  “But they’re not! This is precisely how Dawn Davis works her con—”

  “Well, she hasn’t asked me for a dime!” was Sara’s irritable reply. “And I assure you she doesn’t intend to.” Then the old lady did something Belle could never have imagined. She hung up without a single word of farewell.

  Returning to her friends who were now trying to corral the excited dogs, Belle’s expression was troubled.

  “Is Sara okay?” Rosco asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Belle lied, and everyone there immediately recognized the fib—if not its motivation.

  “Oh dear,” Martha tossed in, “I hope that tumble she took in Maxi’s shop isn’t the sign of more serious problems to come.” She released a lengthy sigh. “Don’t feel bad, Belle, honey, your face is like an open book.” Martha sighed anew. “It’s a tough business ge
tting old. My dad became real cantankerous when his health started to fail . . . forgot simple facts, couldn’t remember where he was sometimes or with whom. It got so bad, I had to take his checkbook away from him; and if that didn’t cause a ruckus, my name isn’t Leonetti. But Dad was giving his money away to any supposed charity that knocked on the door. Not that he had lucre to burn . . . but you write ten checks for ten dollars a pop, and it adds up.”

  Belle couldn’t think what to answer. Savvy Martha was closer to the truth than she realized. “Oh, I’m sure Sara’s simply feeling a bit constrained and homebound,” Belle finally announced, attempting a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “After all, she’s not accustomed to depending on others to propel her around.”

  “Sara Crane Briephs under house arrest,” piped up Bartholomew with an empathetic chuckle, but that single word arrest only heightened Belle’s sense of gloom. As far as she could determine, the infamous Dawn Davis was softening up another potential mark, and unless Rosco could prove the Gudgeon case, no criminal charges would be made. She glanced at Rosco, who shared her look of worry while he offered an overly robust:

  “Looks like its getting too dark for Frisbees and ball-chasing. I guess we’d better pack it in.”

  Abe Jones’s Buster was the last of the canines to be rounded up, and then only because Abe walked up onto the inn’s veranda and leashed him. “Looks like someone was walking around the old place,” Abe remarked as he returned to the group. “Recently. The footprints are fresh.”

  “Really?” both Rosco and Al Lever responded too quickly and in near-perfect unison.

  Abe chortled. “You two wouldn’t happen to have already heard about this, would you? The lock on the office door? No one needs to be a forensics expert to recognize a little B and E when the perp whacks away at a door like that,” he added facetiously.

  Neither man answered, so Abe shook his head. “Not that I want to know what the situation entails. But you remember what they say about friends keeping secrets from their buddies?”

  It was Belle who responded. In the evening light, her face looked wan and worried. “No. What do they say?”

  “If you can’t trust your pals, who are you gonna confide in? The police department?” He laughed again, then studied Belle. “Hey, puzzle lady. Lighten up.”

  But she’d taken the comment too much to heart to bother producing a smile.

  CHAPTER

  24

  “But it’s terrible, Rosco,” Belle was insisting as they drove home from the dog park. Twilight was now gone, and the sky looked like darkest night. “Sara has never hung up on me like that. And I doubt she’s done it to anyone else, either. She’s far too ladylike and self-controlled to slam down the phone. This is a side of her I’ve never seen.”

  “Maybe she simply dropped it,” Rosco suggested as he maneuvered the Jeep around a four-legged shadow that darted across the country lane. “Or your cell-phone reception went on the fritz. We know how often that happens.”

  “Was that a black cat running across the road?” Belle asked as she spun around in her seat and peered through the rear window.

  “It wasn’t a dog,” Rosco answered. “And it especially wasn’t one of those two sacks of snooze lying prone on the backseat.”

  “That’s a terrible omen, a black cat,” Belle continued as she stared into the jet-colored trees lining the roadway. Where the Jeep’s headlights sheered past them, the trunks appeared gray and lifeless; left without illumination, they reverted to an even more inhospitable sight. “What do you think it means?”

  “That some poor creature isn’t as fortunate as the spoiled pooches who grudgingly allow us to share their home?”

  “I’m being serious, Rosco!”

  “You’re not attempting to equate a lost or feral feline with Sara’s odd behavior, are you?” was his amused response. “That might be considered a catty remark—”

  “Rosco, I’m not making a joke!”

  He reached over and rested his hand on her thigh lovingly. “I know you’re not. And I realize that you’re worried about your aborted conversation with Sara, and with her weird defense of the highly questionable Ms. Davis. But I also don’t think you should start imagining dire circumstances, or peering into tea leaves, or having your palm read just because a stray cat skedaddled across the pavement. If it had been a deer, you would have been thrilled to catch sight of it.”

  “That’s true,” was the pensive answer. “I guess it’s the Bambi connection.”

  “And I would have been thrilled it didn’t end up as a hood ornament.”

  Belle shivered at the thought and let out a long and perturbed sigh. And Rosco understood that his wife was far from convinced that the abrupt culmination of her phone call to Sara call might have a logical explanation.

  “Why don’t you phone from our landline as soon as we get home? You can use the excuse that your cell reception broke up, and you couldn’t hear everything she said. After all, maybe she’s imagining you hung up on her rather than vice versa.”

  Belle considered the suggestion, wrapping her arms around herself as if the cold were bothering her instead of her troubled thoughts. “I don’t think that’s the case, Rosco. Sara was really, really cranky. But I’ll give it a try.” She sighed again. “And that was odd how Martha intuited the problem, wasn’t it?”

  “She was talking about her father, Belle,” was the gentle answer. “You know Sara’s not in the same boat.”

  “I know. But the two cases struck me as being painfully alike—”

  “Except that Sara Briephs isn’t losing her marbles.”

  “Mr. Sensitive.”

  “Okay, she’s not undergoing memory-loss issues. Is that better?” Rosco swerved to avoid another darting critter—this one had the bushy tail of a fox—and when it gained the safety of the underbrush bordering the lane it turned red and baleful eyes on the passing car. “No problems with foxes streaking by us, are there? No Celtic myths or Norse legends?”

  Belle shook her head, and Rosco continued. “But we have to bear in mind Sara’s age, and that she took a serious tumble. She may not be firing on all cylinders as a result, albeit a temporary condition. She has been given pain medication, remember.”

  “Which is all the more reason to worry about Dawn Davis’s potential ploys.”

  “The cunning vixen, as it were.” Rosco chuckled briefly.

  “You’re not allowed to speak for the rest of the ride home,” Belle told him, although she was smiling as she spoke.

  “Not even to remark about playing possum if we happen to pass one of them scurrying into the weeds?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Kit and Gab are going to be awfully disappointed,” Rosco laughed.

  “They’re exhausted and asleep. And besides, all they hear when we’re yakking is blah . . . blah . . . blah . . . walk . . . blah . . . blah . . . treat.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure. Remember they live in an erudite household.” Then he patted his wife’s leg again. “Don’t worry, Belle. Sara’s a smart lady. No one has ever pulled the wool over her eyes, and no one ever will.”

  “You’re getting dangerously close to the forbidden critter terrain, buddy.”

  “I didn’t say anything about wolves in sheep’s clothing, did I?”

  “Just stop right there.” But she couldn’t help smiling.

  Returned to their cozy abode, however, Belle’s concerns about her friend increased when she called White Caps and was informed by Emma that “Mrs. Briephs has already retired for the evening.”

  “But it’s only seven, Emma,” Belle asserted while the response was an implacable, or so it seemed, “Madam has been feeling poorly. Possibly you could try again tomorrow?”

  Frustrated and unhappy, Belle hung up and turned to Rosco. “Emma’s lying; I’m sure she is. I’ll bet Sara’s right there in the room and refusing to speak to me.”

  “You don’t know that—”

  “Yes, I do!” Then B
elle did something she seldom allowed herself to do; she began to cry.

  Concerned but not altogether surprised by his wife’s reaction, Rosco put his arms around her. “Sara’s an old lady,” he said gently. “No matter how much she dislikes admitting the fact. As I said before—and as Martha also suggested—maybe that spill did more than damage Sara’s knee. Maybe it genuinely scared her, gave her a frightening glimpse of her own mortality. It makes sense that she’s emotionally as well as physically shaken. And it also seems logical that she could have a delayed reaction . . . and even that her anger over her own failings could find a scapegoat in you.”

  But Belle was not to be consoled. “That awful Dawn Davis!” she railed. “This is all her fault!”

  Rosco continued to hold his wife while the sleepy dogs roused themselves from their torpor and ambled close to lend their own furry support. Belle felt their two wet noses nudging her. “Two . . .” she mumbled. “Two . . . two—” Her words abruptly ceased, and she stood straighter until her eyes looked into Rosco’s face. “When I spoke with Sara, she insisted her experience of Dawn and the allegations against her were ‘two very different things.’ That was the phrase she used.” Belle reached into her pocket to retrieve a tissue, then blew her nose and frowned in concentration. “What if—just if—Sara’s Dawn Davis isn’t the same person as Walter Gudgeon’s Dawn Davis? What if they’re two different people, rather than two different things!”

  Rosco started to reply, but Belle stopped him. “Which means we could be dealing with a case of identity theft . . . More than that; personality theft.”

  “Whoa . . . whoa . . . That seems pretty far-fetched—”

  “But it’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Well, sure, yeah, I guess. Anything’s possible. The Bay Area could have a snow-free winter, for instance, or our health insurance premiums could be cut in half; gas prices could tumble to fifty cents per gallon—”