Right from the Gecko

by Cynthia Baxter

  But it was the distracted look in her eyes that grabbed my attention.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, her voice coarse and a little too loud. “Do I know you? What do you want? Quiet, Facetious! I can’t hear myself think!”

  “It’s me, Jessica Popper,” I replied calmly over the noise. “Do you remember me? I was here on Wednesday with my friend Nick.”

  I studied her face, searching for some sign of recognition. There was none.

  “We talked about Marnie Burton,” I tried again. “The reporter whose body you found on the beach.”

  “Poor girl,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Alice, I’d like to talk to you about her a bit more.”

  I didn’t know if she’d finally remembered me or if she’d just decided I was harmless. But she opened the door. As soon as I walked in and starting scratching Facetious’s neck, she quieted down. Her tail, however, went into high gear.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” I said, stroking the dog’s sleek head to keep her calm.

  “Nope. I was just talking to Jack.” She let out a ragged laugh. “That’s Jack Feeley, my husband. I need advice, and I don’t know who else to ask.”

  I couldn’t help wondering what she was consulting a dead man about. “Advice on what?”

  “What to do about my land.”

  My ears pricked up like Max and Lou’s ears do at the sound of the refrigerator opening.

  But before I got the chance to ask for more details, she said, “Bah! That’s family business. You’re not interested in that. You came here to talk about that poor dead girl. Come into the kitchen. I must have something cold to drink.”

  I was only too glad to follow her toward the back of the house, into the kitchen. This time, instead of sitting down, I headed straight for the sink and leaned against the counter.

  “So where’s that good-lookin’ boyfriend of yours?” she asked as she studied the contents of her own refrigerator as if they were a complete mystery to her. “He looked like he was worth holding on to.”

  So she did remember. “He’s enjoying the beach today,” I told her.

  “Good for him. Much better than spending the afternoon talkin’ to a crazy old lady.”

  “This is very important to me, Alice,” I said. “I’m still trying to figure out what happened the night Marnie was killed. But there’s still so much I don’t know. I was wondering if there was something, anything, you remember from that night that you didn’t think to mention when we last talked. Something you noticed, maybe something you found…”

  “I got nothing more to tell,” she said with a little shrug.

  “I see.” I stared out the window behind the sink, acting as if I were lost in thought. And then, lowering my eyes to the collection she’d assembled on the windowsill, I focused in on the single earring made of tiny pastel-colored shells that was displayed with all the other stones and shells Alice had found on the beach.

  “There’s that earring again,” I commented, trying my best to sound as if I was just making casual conversation. “It’s so pretty. You’re so lucky to find such wonderful things on the beach.”

  “Oh, I didn’t find that piece on the beach,” Alice said offhandedly.

  My mouth was suddenly dry. I couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said about the earring the other time I was here. But I’d just assumed it had come from the same place as all the other pieces on display.

  Struggling to keep my voice even, I asked, “Where did you get it?”

  “I found it in my car, under the seat.”

  “Your car?” I repeated, surprised.

  “That’s right,” she replied. “It was just a few days ago. Early this past week, Monday or Tuesday.”

  Monday or Tuesday, I thought. And Marnie was murdered Sunday night.

  I studied Alice’s face, looking for some reaction to the conversation we were having. Yet she seemed completely unaffected.

  My mind clicked away. Had I been wrong in assuming there was no way Alice Feeley could be crafty enough to have committed murder, then act completely innocent when asked about it—even though she was caught with an earring the victim had been wearing at the time she was killed? Was she someone who had managed to fool me as effectively as she’d fooled Richard Carrera and, from the looks of things, the police? Was Holly the only one who’d seen through her—and was that what she’d been trying to tell me before she got on a plane and disappeared forever?

  It was certainly possible. Yet it seemed just as possible that Alice had no idea the earring had belonged to Marnie.

  By that point, my heart was thumping so loud that I desperately hoped it wouldn’t give me away.

  Trying to sound casual, I commented, “I’d like to get a pair to bring back home as a souvenir. But they’re obviously one of a kind, not the type of thing you can pick up just anywhere. Do you have any idea who might have owned these earrings? I’d like to ask her where she got them.”

  “Nobody I know,” she said. “I haven’t given anybody a ride lately.”

  She frowned slightly, as if she was thinking. “Then again,” she added pensively, “my son could have given someone a ride.”

  “Your son?” My mouth was suddenly so dry I was having difficulty forming words. “I didn’t know you have a son.”

  “Oh, yes. My baby. He borrowed my car a few days ago.” She laughed, her voice filled with affection and warmth. “Of course, he’s not even close to being a baby anymore. Funny how mothers never stop thinking of their kids as ‘their baby,’ no matter how old they get. And he’s my only child, so that makes him even more special.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any pictures,” I said in what I hoped was a chummy voice. “I love family photos.”

  “I sure do!” Alice was already loping out of the kitchen to retrieve a picture of her son. Just as there were undoubtedly few mothers who ever stopped thinking of their children as their “babies,” there were few who could resist showing photos of their offspring to anyone willing to take a look at them.

  She returned seconds later, her cheeks flushed. In her hand was a stack of glossy photographs of different sizes. There were snapshots, wallet-size school photos, even one that somebody had thought deserved to be blown up into a five-by-seven print.

  With trembling hands, I reached for them.

  When I saw the photo on top, electricity shot through me as if I’d been standing on a tin roof in the middle of a thunderstorm. The picture had been taken at Christmastime, probably anywhere from five to ten years earlier. Standing in front of a slightly misshapen evergreen festooned with the usual assortment of ornaments and lights was Alice, looking a bit younger and much more relaxed. There were fewer lines in her face and fewer silvery hairs woven through the dark red strands. She was dressed in loose-fitting green velvet pants and a gauzy bright red top that was draped across her torso.

  However, it was the person standing next to her who grabbed my attention. Alice’s son, her only child. Like his mother, he was smiling at the camera, looking happy and carefree. As was typical for a young man in his twenties or thirties, he was dressed for the family holiday celebration in comfortable-looking jeans and a button-down shirt. His casual clothes, his grin, and his attractive features made him look like any other dutiful son who was spending Christmas with his mother.

  But what I’d just learned about where Alice had discovered the earring, combined with common sense, told me that the man who had killed Marnie was the man in the photo.

  Chapter 17

  “One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”

  —Mark Twain

  I didn’t realize Bryce Bolt was your son,” I remarked in a strained voice.

  “You know Bryce?” she asked, surprised.

  “Yes. I know him through Marnie.”

  “Of course, the dead girl.” Alice had already turned her attention back to the photographs, which clearly inter
ested her more than Marnie Burton. Distractedly, she added, “They worked at the Dispatch together, didn’t they? If you and that girl were friends, it makes sense that she would have spoken about him.” She studied the holiday photograph, then smiled. “Maybe she even had a crush on him. Not that I could blame her. Of course, I’m not the most objective person in the world, but you’ve got to admit that my Bryce is quite a good-looking fellow. Charming too.”

  I was at a complete loss for words. I knew I was supposed to agree, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak, much less to lie. Fortunately, Alice was a million miles away, lost in her own reminiscences.

  “Funny that I had three husbands but just the one child,” she continued, gazing off into the distance as if she were looking backward in time. “My first marriage was to my college sweetheart, Danny Lucas. That lasted only a few months. Plenty of passion, but we were both too young. My marriage to my third husband—that was Jack Feeley—was also short, but that was because he went and had a heart attack after we’d been married only a couple of years.

  “The husband I had a child with was the middle one. Arthur Bolt.” With a hoarse laugh, she added, “Looking back, I think he’s the only one I ever really loved. I mean the way people fall in love in books and movies. But I was stupid enough to let that marriage slip through my fingers. Didn’t know a good thing when I had it.”

  She sighed deeply. “Funny, I still miss Arthur. Jack was the practical one and Danny was special because he was the first, but Arthur was my real soul mate. That’s the one that should have lasted.

  “But Bryce makes up for it. Every day I thank my lucky stars that he’s living here on Maui now. Gives me a chance to make up for all that lost time.”

  “Lost time?” I repeated, not understanding.

  “Arthur and I got divorced in the late eighties. I got a chunk of money, thanks to California’s divorce laws—community property and all that—so I moved here. But Bryce had just turned fourteen, old enough to decide which parent he wanted to live with. He chose to stay in California, with his father. But now, after all those years of me and him living in different places, he ended up coming to Maui to work at the Dispatch.” Her eyes glowed with an almost alarming intensity as she added, “He’s the light of my life, that boy.”

  I tried to maintain a neutral expression as she spoke. But the wheels in my head were turning. The pieces of the puzzle were suddenly fitting together in a way that should have been satisfying but was instead horrifying.

  Sunday night, the night Marnie was killed, Bryce Bolt had borrowed his mother’s car, preferring to use hers instead of his own to carry out the despicable deed he had planned. He undoubtedly knew about his mother’s reputation as an eccentric, one of those people who hover in the background while everyone else pretty much ignores them. He also knew the area’s residents were used to seeing Alice’s dilapidated old Ford Taurus at Kanaha Beach Park at all hours, so no one who spotted it in the area late at night would have raised an eyebrow.

  Using his own car, meanwhile, would have immediately identified him with the heinous crime. After all, Richard Carrera had told me himself that Bryce Bolt was always bragging about his BMW.

  The rest of the details suddenly seemed painfully clear. Some time Sunday night, Marnie had met up with Bryce at the Purple Mango. Maybe their rendezvous was prearranged, or maybe he had been keeping tabs on her closely enough that he managed to make their encounter look accidental.

  But at some point, he got Marnie into his mother’s Taurus. He drove to a secluded spot and strangled her, not noticing in the heat of the moment that one of the distinctive shell earrings she was wearing fell onto the floor of the car. He threw her body into the ocean, then returned the Taurus to his mother. As he drove back home in his own car, after picking up the silver BMW wherever he had left it, the cocky reporter undoubtedly believed he’d committed the perfect crime.

  I wondered how he’d felt about involving his mother—not only by using her car to commit the crime but also by practically guaranteeing that she would be the one to find Marnie’s body on the beach.

  Alice was still talking. Even though I felt dazed, I forced myself to focus on what she was saying.

  “Of course, Bryce is all grown up now,” she went on happily. “He doesn’t want his mother hangin’ around him all the time. So I keep my distance.” Her voice softened as she added, “But I get to see him often enough. And I always know he’s close by.”

  Suddenly I thought of one of the other unanswered questions that still hovered in the room.

  “Alice, I’m curious about this ‘family business’ you mentioned,” I said. “The question about your land that you were discussing with Jack. That has something to do with Bryce, doesn’t it?”

  Alice sighed. “Bryce is so certain I should sell my property to those people. Been workin’ on me for weeks. But I don’t trust corporations. Especially those drug companies. They’re always selling us expensive drugs that turn out to be bad for us. And then the drugs that really work cost so much that people have to go without food just to get the money they need to get ’em.”

  “FloraTech,” I said. But I didn’t need her to tell me what I already knew.

  “That’s right,” she muttered. “Doesn’t matter if they’re supposed to have found some magical way that hibiscus can cure people,” she went on, shaking her head. “Still don’t trust ’em.”

  “I think you’re very wise, Alice,” I said. “If I were you, I’d hold on to your land.”

  “What’s he expect me to do, go live in one of those communities for senior citizens?” she continued. But she no longer seemed to be talking to me. In fact, I wondered if her words were meant for Jack Feeley’s ears, wherever they happened to be. “Bah! Who wants to hang out with a bunch of old people all the time? Especially when I’ve got my own house, my own garden…. Maybe Bryce is too young to understand, but that means a lot to me.”

  Or maybe he’d get a piece of FloraTech’s profits if he got his own mother to sell them her land, I thought angrily. Who knows how deep his loyalty to them was? Especially loyalty that came with a price tag.

  “Hey, look at this photograph,” Alice croaked happily. “This one’s from Bryce’s high school graduation. He looks so handsome in his cap and gown! I always knew he’d be a success. And that’s exactly what he turned into.”

  Alice’s eyes were shining brightly as she paused to leaf through the rest of the photos. I suspected she was reliving some of the most meaningful moments of her life, most of which happened to involve her son.

  The look of joy on her face made my heart wrench. If I was right, if the scenario that I’d constructed in my head really was correct, this loving mother was soon going to have to face the fact that her only child had turned into a coldhearted killer.

  As I drove away from Alice’s house, I felt completely washed out. I was also sick over what I now knew lay ahead for her. It was tragic that such a devoted mother was about to embark upon what would undoubtedly be the most difficult chapter of her life.

  As for me, I still had some important work to do. And the most daunting task ahead of me was convincing Detective Paleka that I’d figured out who killed Marnie Burton.

  I tried calling the police station, but as I expected, he wasn’t available on a Saturday evening. Despite my attempts at getting another number at which I could reach him, the best I could do was leave a message. Other than that, the most I could get out of the officer who answered the phone was that I’d be able to contact him on Monday morning.

  As I pulled into the hotel’s underground parking lot, I pondered the fact that it may have been just as well. It probably made sense for me to pay him another in-person visit, rather than trying to explain what I’d learned over the phone.

  Still, I had a feeling the rest of the weekend was going to pass very, very slowly.

  As I shuffled into the hotel room, the way I felt must have been written all over my face. The moment Nick saw me, his exp
ression contorted into one of alarm.

  “Jessie!” he cried. “What happened?”

  I sank onto the bed. It was funny: At that moment, I really missed Moose. I desperately wished I could cradle a warm, furry animal with ridiculously soft fur in my arms.

  “I know who killed Marnie,” I said in a flat voice.

  Nick sat down beside me, then listened, wide-eyed but silent, as I told him everything I’d learned that afternoon. When I finished, he leaned over and put his arms around me.

  “We have to tell Detective Paleka,” he said.

  “I know. I’ve already tried calling him, but it looks like it’s going to have to wait until Monday.” I couldn’t resist adding, “I guess the Maui police aren’t used to having the tourists do their murder investigations for them.”

  “In that case, it’s good that we have a long, busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  I looked at him blankly. Right then I couldn’t remember a single thing about my real life. My head was still too full of what I’d just learned about Marnie and the events that had resulted in her death.

  “The trip to Hana,” he reminded me. “With Betty and Winston. I think it’ll be good for both of us to get out and forget about all this, at least for a few hours.”

  I couldn’t have agreed with him more. A change of scenery, as well as the chance to spend some time relaxing with our friends, sounded like a welcome refuge.

  My mood was considerably better the next morning when Nick and I met our friends in the lobby. Betty’s face was as pink with anticipation as her bright pink sundress. She wore a big floppy straw hat, and she was carrying a wicker picnic basket brimming with goodies.

  Winston also looked prepared for a day of sightseeing. He was wearing crisp navy blue Bermuda shorts, a white polo shirt, and a New York Yankees baseball hat that he somehow managed to make look dignified. A camera with an impressively large lens hung from his neck on a thick nylon strap.