Elected for Death

by Valerie Wolzien

  The party was boisterous. In another hour the tiny writing on the boxes would be wasted. Very few members of this group would be up to reading anything small by then. Susan skimmed along the wall to the stairway and climbed.

  Tom and Kathleen were sitting in the dark at the top of the stairs.

  “We should have brought a flashlight,” Susan stated flatly.

  “Neither of us will argue with that,” Kathleen said. “I cracked my elbow on a corner and Tom’s tripped twice.”

  “I don’t think we can risk turning on the lights up here. Someone might come up to investigate,” Susan said, explaining about the guards who had been hired to protect the presents.

  Tom was picking at the lapel of his suit and didn’t join their conversation.

  “Something wrong?”

  “There’s a lot of sticky stuff on this suit,” he answered, sounding annoyed.

  “I wasn’t carrying it with me in case I found a good-looking young man who wanted to sneak into a wedding. The suit was on its way to the cleaners—because it needed cleaning.”

  “But what is this stuff?” he asked.

  “Probably lunch or dinner. Jed is always either working or politicking during meals—so a lot of food ends up on his clothing these days.” She looked around. “My eyes are actually beginning to adjust to this light. Do you think we could get going?”

  Kathleen stood up. “Just tell us what you want us to do.”

  “Well, I came up the stairs and walked into the boardroom over there.” She nodded to the closed door to the right. “And I was wondering where someone else would have to have been standing to have been watching me.” She frowned. “If you understand what I mean.”

  “Sure. You walk to the door—very slowly—and then go into the room. What sort of lighting is in there?”

  Susan thought for a moment before answering Kathleen. “There was lots of overhead lighting when I was there before. But I think I saw a table lamp on a credenza at the end of the room. I could try turning it on.”

  “Look, we don’t want to be discovered wandering around up here because we’d be asked to leave and we wouldn’t accomplish what we want to accomplish—but it wouldn’t be that big a deal—no one is going to shoot us,” Tom said. “And if you don’t turn something on we’re not going to be able to see you—or anything else.”

  Susan decided not to mention the presence of armed guards. Both Tom and Kathleen would be happier not knowing. “Okay. You two split up and I’ll try to find a dim light and then we’ll get started.”

  They each set off in opposite directions. Susan, ever aware of the danger of discovery, hurried over to the conference-room door and opened it slowly and quietly. The room, lit only by light coming through the windows overlooking the room below, was dark. The speakers were on and “Send in the Clowns” bounced from wall to wall. Susan tiptoed over to the place where she thought the light was located and reached out, hoping to touch the shade. What she touched felt like skin … a hand.…

  Susan felt a scream gathering in her throat. But when it arrived, it seemed to come from outside of her.

  “What the hell … ?”

  Susan gasped. The scream was soprano but the voice was definitely male. She backed away, knocking over a chair or small table behind her.

  “Daniel, what are you doing? Someone will hear!”

  This time the voice was female. Susan moved back again and, catching her foot in the furniture behind her, crashed to the floor.

  A light flashed on, giving Susan a clear view of the bride—Babs presumably—the top of her white dress farther off her shoulders than any designer had imagined, sprawled across the credenza. An elegant-looking young man lay across her.

  “Turn that off!”

  Her groom took orders well. The room was plunged into darkness.

  “I’m sor—” Susan began.

  “Shut up! Do you want someone to come up here?”

  Susan smiled. Did this young woman think this was the first time a bride and groom started the honeymoon a little early? “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just didn’t know you were here. I’ll—”

  “Hush!”

  Susan complied.

  “If one of those damn guards comes up here to look around and sees us, and Daddy hears about it, he’ll kill someone,” the bride whispered.

  “He’ll kill me,” her young man insisted. “And God knows what Bob will do.”

  Susan didn’t say anything. If this man wasn’t Bob, then the bride had a bigger problem that she wanted to know about. She started to speak, but the couple immediately shushed her.

  “Okay, who’s in here?” The door slammed open and the guard Susan had seen in the kitchen stood framed in the light.

  Susan leaped to her feet. “It’s me. The pastry chef!” she lied. She hurried to the door, hoping he wouldn’t feel obliged to turn on the light and expose the couple behind her.

  “Well, you, missy, are going to come with me. We’re going to call the police.”

  Susan smiled up at him despite the rude way he had grabbed her arm. “I think that’s an excellent idea,” she announced, looking down at her hand. “I would like to speak with Brett about something myself.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “You are going to explain what you were doing up there, aren’t you? I assume the story that you were moonlighting as a pastry chef was just a story?”

  Susan assumed this was a rhetorical question and didn’t answer. Besides, if she explained, she would be forced to mention Tom and Kathleen. She had seen them sneaking down the stairs as she was rushed from the building. “I was looking for clues—and look what I found. Blood. Fake blood like the stuff that was on Erika’s bed. Only this was on Jed’s jacket. And we know Jed didn’t have anything to do with putting it in the carriage house!” She looked at Brett, hoping he would appreciate her point.

  Brett looked tired—and miserable. His office, where the two of them were sitting, was a mess. “You haven’t found Erika, have you?” she asked gently, changing the subject.

  “If she’s at a spa around here, she signed in under an assumed name. Not that there’s any law against that.” He frowned. “To tell you the truth, I’m going nuts. I can’t believe she did it. But I know … I’ve seen people misjudge the women they love.… And, of course, this is destroying my credibility with my men. Some of them don’t believe we can’t find her. I hear the rumors—some of them actually believe I’m hiding her.” He shook his head. “And I can’t blame them. I’d be thinking the same thing if I were in their shoes. She can’t be guilty. But—” He stopped.

  “But why did she disappear?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Just because she ran away after Ivan’s death doesn’t mean she’s the person who killed him.”

  “So why did she run away? She got some sort of urge to exercise and diet that couldn’t be denied?” Brett crossed his arms and put his head down on his desk.

  Susan sat silently in the chair on the other side of the desk and waited for him to collect himself. When he looked up again, she thought there were tears in his eyes. “Is there any way we can get into Erika’s store?” she asked.

  “The one here in town?”

  Susan nodded her yes.

  “Actually I may have a key. She was having trouble with the alarm system a few months ago and I met the company’s rep there when she had to be in the city. I think it’s still here.” He scrounged around in his pants pocket as he spoke. “Yup. You think there’s something important there?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t do it. I agree with you there. And I think I may have a clue as to who did—but I need to think about it.”

  “Susan. I need to know—”

  “Brett, trust me on this one. I don’t have anything definite yet. Just a vague idea—and it doesn’t have anything to do with Erika.”

  “Then why do you want to go to the store?”

  “Because I want to know why Erika volunteered to serve
on the Landmark Commission. She doesn’t own the carriage house, so I was thinking that her store might have something to do with it.”

  Brett’s handsome face crinkled up into a half grin. “You’re right. Of course, I’ve been so worried about whether or not she murdered Ivan that I didn’t stop to think about what had been going on.”

  “It sounds like Erika was a pretty busy woman. If she felt the need to serve her community, there are lots of things she could have done besides serving on the Landmark Commission. I don’t know that the store is the answer, but—”

  “But it’s as good a place to start as we know of,” Brett finished for her.

  “Exactly.”

  “So let’s get going.” Brett leaped up and rushed over to open his office door for her.

  “What are you going to tell that goon from the security company?” Susan asked, preceding him into the hallway.

  “I don’t think anything less than hours of torture will satisfy the man.” Brett nodded to two of his officers seated in the lobby near the door of the police department. “So I’m going to ignore him. Someday you must tell me why you practically threw yourself into his arms at that wedding reception.”

  “Someday I will.” she promised, knowing he had more important things on his mind right now. She followed him over to his unmarked police car and got in to the passenger’s seat. “What do you know about the store?”

  “Not a whole lot. I know the store has always been located there. It wasn’t somewhere else before this. It’s been around for quite a while. You’ve been there, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. Not recently, but I bought the big wheat wreath with gourds that I hang over the fireplace in Jed’s study there and—I don’t believe it. What is wrong with me this year?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been so busy that I didn’t even hang that wreath—it usually goes up the day before Halloween. I cannot believe it.”

  Brett apparently couldn’t have cared less. They were almost at the store. “What precisely are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know—this is similar to what you were thinking about at the carriage house. Except this probably connects the store to the Landmark Commission in some way.”

  “Sounds like we should be doing a title search down at town hall, not looking around the store,” Brett said, maneuvering his car into a loading zone.

  “Could we go check that out?”

  “It’s closed.”

  “I just thought that since it looks like you can park anyplace you want …”

  Brett got out of the car without saying a word. Susan followed quickly, but he had unlocked the front door of the shop and was punching buttons on the keypad inside the door when she joined him. “The office is through that door,” he said, nodding toward the back of the store.

  Susan headed in the direction he indicated, taking the time to notice the tiny arrangements of dried flowers on the way. They would look wonderful on the table at Thanksgiving.…

  “Susan? You aren’t listening to me, are you?”

  “I was just thinking,” Susan answered a little indignantly.

  Brett stopped with his hand on the office door and turned to look at her. “I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. You’ve been a big help and there’s no excuse for me snapping at you like that.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. I know the strain you’re under. Once we find out who killed Ivan, everything will be okay.”

  “Everything will never be okay again.” The speaker of these words—Erika Eden—walked out of her office, a sad expression on her face.

  Without a word, Brett enfolded her in his arms, his lips lightly brushing her sleek cap of hair. Erika briefly closed her eyes, looking, Susan thought, like a cat who had just found a warm, sunny spot on a windowsill. Then she opened her eyelids wide and looked straight at Susan. “You said something about finding out who killed Ivan—are you really getting closer to that?”

  “We may have some answers soon,” Brett answered her.

  “Nothing is definite,” Susan insisted. Erika’s misery was obvious and she didn’t want to add to it with false hopes.

  “Oh … I thought maybe you had come here to tell me it was all over … but, of course, you didn’t even know I would be here, did you?” Erika looked up at Brett curiously. “Why are you here?”

  “We wanted to look around. We were hoping for some answers,” he explained.

  “But now you can tell us what we want to know,” Susan added.

  Erika glanced up at Brett and took a deep breath. “Ask me anything,” she insisted.

  “Why did you join the Landmark Commission?”

  Erika sighed. “I’ve been dreading answering this question—but you probably knew that,” she said to Brett.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Susan said quickly. She thought Brett might not want to admit his ignorance of the situation. “But I do need to know the answer to the question.”

  “There’s an easy answer,” Erika said, moving out of Brett’s embrace and looking straight into Susan’s eyes. “I joined the Landmark Commission because I wanted to protect my business. It’s simple. In fact, almost everything I’ve done for the past decade has been done to protect my business or to help it grow.” She looked up at Brett. “Except for getting involved with you. Of course, when I met you last summer, I thought everything was going to work out.”

  Susan resisted a strong urge to ask where they had met instead of a more relevant question. “How did you even hear about the Landmark Commission before it was formed?”

  “Luck. I run all the stores from here—do all the paperwork. Hancock is a pretty high-rent district, but it’s nothing compared to Madison Avenue or Southampton, so it’s logical that the largest office is here. Besides, this is where I started. I just bumped out the back wall, moved up, and added lots of memory to my PC. Come see,” she added, noticing the confused expression on Susan’s face. She opened the door to her office, turned on the lights, and led them in.

  “Wow. Who would have thought all this was back here?” Susan commented, looking around the two-story glassed-in atrium. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “It is now,” Erika said proudly. “When I expanded back here, it was also used as a storeroom. But I now have three warehouses.”

  “Not here in town,” Brett added.

  “No, they’re all out in New Jersey.”

  “This is the only property you own in Hancock,” Susan said.

  “I don’t own this. I rent. But I’m lucky enough to have had a long lease—one that is due to run out in September next year.”

  “And you’ll move then? Or will you close the store?”

  “I’ve known this was coming for almost two years and planned for it. There was never any real question of not having a store in Hancock. The whole healthy, wealthy Connecticut suburbia has gotten me a lot of publicity—and it’s a hook. I’m not quite like all the other natural-products stores in New York—and I have a history. People come to me for help setting up new stores—and they come to me for the natural products that I import from all over the world. That’s more and more a part of my company.”

  “You may not know this, but I went through your carriage house,” Susan interrupted, not wanting to indict Brett in the activity. “And I saw a letter from someone offering a lot of money to buy your business.”

  “Eleven million dollars. A whole lot of money.” Erika nodded seriously. “But it’s not just money that I want. I’d like to be able to keep up the import part of the business and let someone else take over the stores.” She smiled. “I’ve arranged and rearranged flowers and leaves until I’m sick of it. And you always have to have an edge—to make sure your look is just a little better than everyone else’s.” She shook her head. “There are a lot of people who do that type of thing better than I do. And I’ve been lucky enough to talk some of them into working for me. That part of the business can go on without me.”

  “Erika has been
providing work for women in small villages in underdeveloped countries with her importing,” Brett began proudly.

  “And building a company and making a good living doing it,” Erika added. “Brett sometimes makes me sound like the local missionary rather than an American entrepreneur.”

  “So what does all this have to do with the Landmark Commission?” Susan asked.

  “Do you know the old gristmill?”

  “Down by the river?”

  Erika nodded. “I own it. And I have every intention of turning it into Stems and Twigs’ flagship store. When it’s opened, the publicity will be wonderful and it will set the tone for the rest of the stores. And, with luck, I will be able to sell the entire business, keeping the involvement that I want to have.”

  “But it’s truly a historical landmark. There’s no way the Landmark Commission will allow you to alter it,” Susan said, remembering the videotape of the Zoning Board meeting she had watched.

  “Not quite true,” Erika answered. She looked embarrassed. “That’s the shoddy part of the story. I knew the Landmark Commission was being created, because both of the Nearings are good customers. Nearing Rings has been using us to create their holiday decorations at the plant and for their parties since we were just a small business here in town. Lyman believes in using local businesses where he can. And his wife, Rosemary, has been a wonderful customer for a long time. In fact, we carry a very popular line of colonial herbs because of her support.”

  “And one of them told you about the Landmark Commission?”

  Erika surprised her by chuckling. “Both of them told me, in fact. They don’t, of course, talk to each other much, but they were both in the store in the same week and each of them mentioned it to me. Someone—I think it was Rosemary, but I’m not completely sure—mentioned that the commission would have jurisdiction over the historical buildings in town. I thought immediately of the mill. It was on my mind almost constantly since I had only closed on it the week before.”