The Milburn Big Box Set

by Nancy McGovern

  “I found the key!” Martin cried out, “It was here, under the bed.” Nora turned around to see him rising up beside the bed, holding a key aloft.

  “Why were you looking for the key?” Nora asked, confused.

  “Well…” Martin shrugged. “Victor was at the door when Rafael and I came running up. He said the door was locked and we broke it down.”

  “The door was locked.” Rafael nodded. “From the inside, at that.”

  “Poor Seth. I can’t believe he did this!” Martin said.

  “Did what?” Nora narrowed her eyes.

  “Why, killed himself, of course! It’s suicide for sure!”

  *****

  Chapter 6

  Nora’s Doubts

  There was a lot Nora didn’t know. She didn’t know how the universe was created, or how some people managed to effortlessly be charming, or how ants drank water. But one thing she did know was that this was no suicide. Seth’s death had been premeditated. She was sure of it. A chill went through her now, as she looked at the other people in the room with her, and realized that it had to be one of them. A bigger chill seemed to follow in the wake of the first one as she realized that at least for the next few hours, she was going to be trapped in the same house as the killer.

  “You ok?” Martin Schwartz put a hand on her shoulder. “I thought you were going to faint for a moment there.”

  “I’m fine.” Nora’s voice was brittle. “We should all get out of this room. The police won’t be too happy with us.”

  “I’ll try and cross the bridge,” Rafael said. “We really do need to alert the police.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Victor chimed in. “Let’s go.”

  “Let’s all three go,” Martin said.

  Lenu, who seemed to have recovered somewhat, handed them all an umbrella, although, she shrugged, “I don’t think it’ll help much. The rain’s coming from all sides.”

  Nora found herself back downstairs in the kitchen. Lenu was sipping at some wine she’d found in the pantry. Nora, needing time to think, busied herself with preparing the rest of the dinner.

  “I don’t know how you can do that,” Lenu said, her voice dull. “How can you cook at a time like this?”

  “Keeping busy helps,” Nora said. “I’ve found that when my brain is going into overdrive, the ease and precision of cooking helps soothe me. Everything’s orderly, you know? It’s precise, I can follow a series of steps and know exactly what I’ll get at the end of it.”

  “Unlike real life?” Lenu sighed. “True. Life’s so much more messy. When I was younger, I tried my best to follow all the steps that were supposed to make me happy, you know. I focused on my looks, my career, my husband…and look where it got me. Out in some barn in Wyoming with a dead body above my head.”

  A dead body. Nora wondered if that’s all Seth was to Lenu now. Funny, considering she’d spoken to him with barely disguised passion in her voice earlier in the day. “Were you friends with Seth even after your marriage…fell apart?”

  Lenu shook her head. “No. After his precious Ayla committed suicide, I never spoke to him again. I mean…there wasn’t much left to say.”

  “It must have hurt you so much when he left,” Nora said.

  Lenu shook her head. “Some part of me always knew that I couldn’t keep him forever. Seth wasn’t a forever sort of guy. When he fell in love with me, he put me on a pedestal and worshipped me, and it felt wonderful to be worshipped. Being with Seth made me feel so alive and important. Imagine a song written for you that’s playing on stereos all over the country! But then, just as suddenly, his passion seemed to evaporate, and I might as well have evaporated with it. That was the thing about Seth; he didn’t fall in love with women as much as he fell in love with his fantasy of who the woman was. In a way, I guess he never loved the real me, just…some other Lenu he conjured. It just took me years to come to terms with that.”

  Nora nodded. “And Ayla?”

  “Ah. Ayla.” Lenu smiled. “He never got over her. He never got a chance to get over her, did he? She killed herself, and he was permanently stuck with his imaginary Ayla. In a way, that’s the only woman he could ever love. It was weird in a way, to see him obsessed with another woman the way he’d been once with me. I envied her.”

  Nora noted the bitterness in Lenu’s voice. No matter what she said, Nora didn’t quite believe that she’d ever come to terms with Seth abandoning her. There was a bright vein of hurt threading through her words.

  “Do you really believe Ayla killed herself?” Nora asked. “Seth was so sure someone killed her.”

  Lenu scoffed. “Of course, he was. Seth was convinced Victor had murdered her. He hired an investigator to try and find proof, but nothing ever came of it. The police were certain it was a suicide because the room was locked from the inside, you see.”

  “But what about the fact that the window was open?” Nora mused. “Nobody ever explained that.”

  Lenu paled suddenly. “A-are you saying that Seth was killed, too? After all, we found him in a locked room with an open window. Just like Ayla.”

  “I’m not saying anything of the sort,” Nora said. “I just… I’m not sure that everything adds up to a suicide. Seth was left handed, but the gun was in his right hand. Also, if it was a suicide, why was Seth standing randomly in the middle of the room? Why wouldn’t he sit on his bed or the writing desk?” There was the bootprint too, of course, but for now, Nora had decided to keep that to herself.

  Lenu’s eyes were wide, her face scared. “But who would kill Seth? After all these years! It isn’t possible. Unless…unless Seth was right, and Ayla had been murdered!”

  Nora nodded. “I wonder.”

  “No. No. Surely not. Seth was old and depressed. He self-destructed the way rock stars often do. That’s all there was to it.”

  “Did you ever get over your guilt about Ayla’s death?” Nora asked, suddenly changing tack. She caught Lenu by surprise, clearly, because the older woman’s mouth fell open. “Guilt? Why would I feel guilt about Ayla’s death?!” Her voice was shrill. “She killed herself! Sure, I was drunk the night before and I gave her a piece of my mind, so what! I called her a homewrecker, and it was true! But I didn’t make her kill herself!” Lenu paused. “Unless you’re implying that I killed Ayla all those years ago?”

  “I’m not implying anything,” Nora said. In her mind, though, she wondered. Had Lenu killed Ayla all those years ago? Had she lived her life happily, knowing she’d gotten away with the murder? And now, years later, had she been frightened when Seth called her to this gathering, and killed him in a panic? It was possible. Lenu looked thin and frail, but her body was corded with muscle from a lifetime of running marathons. Nora thought it perfectly possible for her to sneak up to Seth’s room, kill him, and then run back down. She remembered now that Lenu’s scream had coincided almost perfectly with the gunshot. Why? Nora had taken a little while to process the gunshot, thinking it was thunder, but Lenu immediately knew. As if she’d been expecting it.

  “What did you do after you went upstairs today?” Nora asked.

  “I didn’t plan a murder, if that’s what you’re implying. In fact, I tried to console poor Victor. He was furious that Seth had tricked us all into this gathering. Poor Victor, sometimes I think he took Ayla’s death even harder than Seth did.”

  “Was Victor with you all afternoon, then?”

  “No.” Lenu frowned. “Let’s see. We went up at about five, right? The gunshot was heard around seven thirty. I was with Victor till five thirty and after that, he went to his room and was asleep for two hours.”

  “You recognized the gunshot as one, almost immediately?” Nora asked. “I thought it was thunder for a minute.”

  Lenu nodded. “I do target practice every Tuesday with a bunch of friends. It’s a fun hobby. I realized it was a gunshot as soon as I heard it.”

  Nora wondered if Lenu realized what she’d just admitted; that she was very capable with a g
un.

  The door burst open as Nora was about to ask her another question, and the three men tumbled in, soaked to the skin.

  “It’s useless,” Martin said. “The rain’s coming in too strong. We couldn’t cross the bridge.”

  “What!” Lenu exclaimed. “Then you couldn’t call in the police?”

  Victor nodded. “For now, we’ll all just have to stay here and wait for the storm to abate.”

  “But…” Lenu looked at Nora, and Nora subtly shook her head. If the murderer was trapped in here with them, it was best to let him continue thinking that everyone considered it a suicide. But of course, there was the possibility that the murderer already knew Nora thought it was not a suicide.

  Because there was a possibility—a very real one—that Lenu had done it.

  *****

  Chapter 7

  Rafael’s Reminisces

  While Martin and Victor went off to bathe and Lenu went to lie down, Rafael sat at the table, and consumed cup after cup of hot green tea. His hair was still damp from the rain, but he’d mostly dried himself off. He was sitting bare-chested now, wearing gym shorts, with a blanket wrapped around him.

  “Sorry,” he said to Nora. “Since we were just here for a weekend, I didn’t pack too many clothes, and all my shirts are wet now.”

  “That’s alright.” Nora smiled. “As long as you’re comfortable.”

  “Well, I doubt I could be comfortable in the same house as a dead man,” Rafael sighed. “What a terrible waste! How could he kill himself? He had money, fame, fans… it’s unbelievable.”

  Nora shrugged. “People are unpredictable.”

  Rafael nodded. “People are selfish. Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness. You can’t bear your own pain, so you kill yourself and distribute it to those who love you.”

  Nora looked up at him. His face had darkened, and his brows were pulled together in a frown. He looked up at her with eyes full of pain, and Nora felt a twinge of sympathy. He’d only been a teenager when his mother died, all those years ago. As if sensing what she was thinking, he said, “I guess I’m just bitter. My mother killed herself when I was just seventeen, you see. It messed me up for a long time. I never saw it coming! I never even knew she was depressed. Then one night… bam. She was gone.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Nora said.

  Rafael shivered a little. “Don’t be. I mean… it took me a long time to come to terms with it, but I guess she’s in a better place now. At least, I hope she is. I just wish… I just wish she’d shared her problems with someone, instead of killing herself. I was so young, and I was thrown to the mercy of a cruel world. I didn’t just lose her, I lost my house, my friends, my entire life.”

  “But you pulled yourself together eventually,” Nora said. “You made something of your life. She’d be proud of you if she could see you today.”

  Rafael gave her a weak, but grateful smile. “Thanks. I hope she would. I hope Seth finds peace, too, whatever his reasons were.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, where were you all afternoon?” Nora asked.

  Rafael shrugged. “Let’s see… well, I was smoking on the terrace.”

  “Upstairs?” Nora raised an eyebrow. “In the rain?”

  “Yep. I know it’s weird, but to be honest, I was a little shaken up when I realized Seth was trying to recreate the night of my mother’s death. I needed to calm myself. I went up on the terrace and smoked, but when the rain got too heavy, I came downstairs again, and changed my outfit.” Rafael frowned. “We heard the shot around seven thirty, right? I must have come down at about seven.”

  “Was anyone else in the hallway then?”

  “No,” Rafael said. “It was empty. Although,” he frowned a little, “there was a wet patch on the carpet right outside Martin Schwartz’s room. Make of that what you will.”

  Nora nodded. “I’m sorry this happened,” she said, after a brief pause. “I mean, it must be traumatizing for you to relive that night again, even if it’s been years ago.”

  Rafael shrugged, though his lower lip trembled just the slightest bit. “What can I say? Bad stuff happens sometimes.”

  Nora patted him on the shoulder, ready to turn away, when he suddenly piped up. “The thing that gets to me—the thing I never really got over—is what if? What if…” He left his words hanging, as though he didn’t want to complete it.

  “What if?” Nora turned around.

  “What if she was murdered?” Rafael asked. “Seth always suspected it. I know who he suspected, too.”

  “Lenu?” Nora asked. “His ex-wife?”

  “What? No. Victor.” Rafael bit his lip. “The night my mother died, I wasn’t supposed to be in the house, but I was. We’d had a fight because she caught me with some weed in the bedroom. She said some really harsh things, but I suppose I understand her anxiety better now that I’m grown up. Back then, I was just mad. Part of the reason I was mad was that I knew she was overreacting, and part of the reason she was overreacting was that she was nervous.”

  “Nervous?”

  Rafael nodded. “I don’t know what the nervousness was about, was it meeting Seth for the first time after his divorce? Was it the fact that she knew Victor was going to be there too...”

  “Why does Victor factor into it at all?” Nora asked.

  “Well, you know, the two of them were exes,” Rafael said.

  “What?!” Nora gasped.

  “Sure. Victor met my mom long before Seth ever did, while doing some solo work. He dated my mother for two years, before they broke up. When my mom found out she was going to be working with Victor’s group, she told him that she wanted things to stay professional; she didn’t want the others judging her for having been with him. So Victor never disclosed his old relationship to the rest of the band.”

  This shed a whole new light on Victor’s behavior. Nora bit her lip. “What do you think of Victor?” she asked Rafael.

  “He’s violent,” Rafael said. “He’s not over the top and extroverted like Seth was, but there’s a real streak of violence in him, underneath that brooding, melancholy exterior.”

  “The night your mother died—if it’s not too painful—Victor was at her door before you, correct?”

  Rafael nodded. “I was asleep, and I was woken up by a shot. When I went out, Victor was in the hallway, struggling to open my mom’s door. He started shouting about gunshots. Then Martin came out, and he kicked the door open. Martin and I rushed to where my mother lay, while Victor stood by the doorway, just frozen. We found the key to the room on the floor later on.”

  Nora nodded. “So Victor was rattling the doorknob when you came out? But he was doing it silently?”

  Rafael frowned. “Kind of weird now that I think about it. Yes. Victor was rattling the doorknob, sort of like he was testing if it was locked. He looked up and started yelling about gunshots as soon as I came out.”

  A vision rose in Nora’s head--an idea of how Ayla could have been murdered from outside a locked door. What if Victor had killed Ayla, and then rushed out to lock the door? When Rafael stumbled out, Victor had probably been caught and in a panic, pretended that he was trying to get to Ayla instead of away from her? It would have been easy, too, to drop the key inside the room while Martin and Rafael were distracted, and claim that the door was locked from the inside.

  Perhaps the open window was the red herring. The real question was, if Ayla had locked the door from inside and killed herself--why drop the key on the floor? Wouldn’t it be far more natural to place it on a nightstand or table? Weirder still, the same pattern had been repeated today. Seth had been found dead in the middle of the room, and the key had been found under his bed. If Seth had killed himself--and Nora really doubted that he had--why on earth would he toss the key there?

  “Hey guys.” Martin Schwartz entered the room, wearing striped blue pajamas, with a towel around his neck. “You doing ok? Specially you, Rafael?”

  Rafael shrugged. “I’m just shutt
ing it all out for now.”

  “Man, I’m so sorry. This must be terrible for you.” Schwartz leaned down and gave Rafael a hug. “It’s so twisted. Why would Seth do this to you? He must have known how much it would hurt! To recreate the night of Ayla’s death, and then kill himself in the middle of it…it’s just…weird.”

  “Martin…buddy.” Rafael’s voice was heavy. “I’m beginning to think that it isn’t weird. I don’t think Seth killed himself.”

  “What?!” Martin looked shocked. “But the door…it was locked..”

  “I don’t know. It clicked as I was talking to Nora, but the circumstances just seem so strange to me. Seth always doubted the police’s verdict of suicide in my mother’s case. What if he’d found some new evidence all these years later? What if that’s why he gathered us here?”

  “Are you saying that we’re trapped in this house with a killer?” Martin’s eyes were wide.

  Rafael bit his lip so hard this time, that a drop of blood welled up. “I’m saying…the amount of details that are identical in my mother’s death and Seth’s are no coincidence. There’s foul play afoot.”