A perilous plot, p.9
A Perilous Plot, page 9
But what if she didn’t? She’d be a fool not to. And what if the Everett Foundation turned down Polly’s request for help? Should Tricia try to influence Grace to approve such an application?
There were other ways to solicit funds for someone in need of medical attention, which was a crime for a nation that billed itself as the most prosperous in the world. The sad fact was that people who had no insurance often died of their ailments because they didn’t have the means to pay for expensive treatments. Tricia actually knew of a few women who had been failed by the country’s for-profit health care system. In those days, she hadn’t had the means to offer much more than sympathy. If the Everett Foundation couldn’t help Polly’s son, could she fund such an operation—and if not, could she convince Angelica to do so? The fact that Polly had a reputation for being difficult—if not hostile—was a huge mark against her. But it wasn’t Polly who needed a transplant. As far as Tricia knew, no one had a beef against Polly’s son.
Though Tricia, Pixie, and Mr. Everett diligently worked to pack up all the books, the task seemed just a little greater than their ability to do so.
Still, she found herself thinking about Bunny Murdock and the unwelcome information she’d shared. Tricia hoped her mother didn’t know about the alleged affair. Sheila Miles had never been known to forgive and forget, and Tricia hated to think what the consequences might be if Sheila ever discovered Bunny’s betrayal.
Nine
It was half an hour before closing when Tricia remembered she’d promised to feed her sister something yummy for dinner. But all she could remember residing in her freezer were some generic chicken filets, ciabatta rolls, and bags of various vegetables. Nothing that would constitute yummy. But then, Angelica said she’d be happy with bread and water. Tricia could supply that.
She cut her employees loose for the day and hurried up the steps to her apartment to try to come up with some kind of dinner to placate her sister. When it came to an appetizer, Tricia was just as skunked. She had a chunk of cheddar to cut into slices and a box of poppy seed crackers. It would have to do.
She’d assembled a makeshift dinner by the time Angelica arrived some twenty minutes later than expected, looking as stressed as Tricia had ever seen her. She broke out the pitcher of martinis she’d made, as well as the chilled glasses and olives, and poured the drinks. “Rough day?”
Angelica rolled her eyes. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Why don’t we sit down in the living room and you can tell me all about it.”
“Only if you want to feel as depressed as me,” Angelica said as she snagged her glass and the plate of cheese and crackers and headed for her usual spot. Tricia put the pitcher back in the fridge, grabbed her own glass, and followed, settling down on the end of the sectional nearest to her sister.
“I never got a chance to ask you about the closing on the Bookshelf Diner.”
Angelica selected a cracker. “I’m not the face of NR Associates. As usual, Antonio handled it. He’s pushing me to make up my mind about how we move forward with the project. But honestly, I’ve had so much on my mind—first with the whole debacle with Daddy not being dead, and then Bunny’s arrival…”
Angelica had had months to contemplate the diner’s fate, so her excuses sounded lame at best.
“If it’s any consolation, the customers are getting antsy.”
“Like whom?”
“Pixie and Mr. Everett. Pixie’s afraid there’ll be no room for them at Booked for Lunch come tourist season and that she’ll have to make her lunch every workday.”
“Hmm…I guess I hadn’t thought about that situation.”
“Well, think about it.” Tricia changed the subject. “How did relocating Bunny go?”
Angelica scowled. “It went. Just before I got here, she texted me with a list of complaints about the manor.”
“Such as?”
“She said her room is drafty. I’ll have the contractor see if the windows need caulking.”
“What else?”
“She said the mattress was lumpy. That’s impossible. Every one of them is brand-new and, except for me testing it out, she was the first to sleep on hers.”
“Anything else?”
“That Cleo wasn’t attentive enough.”
“What was she expecting? A servant at her beck and call?”
“She said it’s creepy being all alone in such a big house.”
“Well, I can’t blame her there. You aren’t advertising a ghost, are you?”
“I’ve slept at the manor five times and never encountered one. And if someone was haunting the place, I’m sure Sarge would pick up on it. And, as I suspected, she wondered if she could stop over at my place for dinner and wasn’t pleased when I had to tell her no.”
“She always was tight with a buck,” Tricia remarked.
“Yes, it was Mother who picked up the tab whenever they’d go out for lunch. Perhaps a day or so of buying her own meals will cause her to hurry home.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she asked you for gas money,” Tricia quipped.
“Neither would I.”
Angelica’s phone pinged. She ignored it and sipped her drink before reaching for another cracker. A minute later, it pinged again. Finally, the phone rang and she glanced at the number. “It’s Cleo. Now what’s Bunny done?” she asked, annoyed. She picked up the phone and stabbed the little green icon and the speaker one, too. “Hello, Cleo. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I called NR Associates and only got voice mail.”
“Yes, well, their offices are closed. What do you need?”
“I…I came over to the mansion to take out the sausage to thaw overnight for Ms. Ricita’s guest’s breakfast tomorrow and…” She stopped talking.
Tricia and Angelica exchanged glances.
“And what?” Angelica demanded.
“I…I think Ms. Murdock’s dead.”
“What?” Angelica cried.
“I found her phone in the kitchen and figured she’d need it, so I went to look for her in all the common areas, and when she wasn’t in any, I went to her room. The door was ajar…and I found her there, lying in a puddle of blood.”
Tricia’s jaw dropped. Cleo seemed remarkably calm reporting such a calamity.
“Lying where?” Angelica asked.
“Oh, on that beautiful Persian rug next to the bed.”
“Oh, no!” Angelica cried in anguish, but Tricia wasn’t sure if she lamented Bunny’s passing or the ruin of an antique rug. “Did you call nine one one?” Angelica demanded.
“As she’s dead, I didn’t see what good the paramedics could do.”
“Well, you need to call the police right away.”
Cleo’s words were slow in coming—probably from shock. “Okay, yeah…I’ll do that!”
“I’ll be there in minutes,” Angelica promised. “Cut this call and contact them now!”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
The call ended.
Tricia closed her eyes and sighed, feeling like a jerk as she wondered when she’d get to eat her dinner.
* * *
* * *
The police hadn’t yet arrived when Tricia and Angelica showed up at Stonecreek Manor. Angelica punched in a code to unlock the vintage oak door and entered, calling for Cleo.
Tricia followed her sister through the main entry, but there was no sign of Cleo. “You find her. I’ll stick by the front door to direct the police. Where’s the room where Bunny was staying?”
“Second floor, last bedroom on the left at the top of the stairs.”
“Go—and make sure Cleo hasn’t messed up the crime scene.”
“Crime scene?” Angelica asked, appalled. “Why would you immediately assume Bunny was killed? Couldn’t she have just fallen, hit her head, and died?”
“Ange, she admitted to us that she was having an affair with our father. That’s a motive for murder by a woman who’s involved with something underhanded and may be lurking somewhere near—along with Daddy. It makes sense to—”
“No!” Angelica protested. “I won’t believe Mother is a murderer.”
“Then how about Daddy as a suspect? We don’t know that Bunny wasn’t blackmailing him.”
“And we don’t know that she was, either,” Angelica said hotly.
“Just go,” Tricia advised. “I’ll direct the police on when they get here.”
Angelica shook her head. “It’s a bad omen,” she muttered. “Two people died in this house within six months. I’m beginning to think the place is cursed.” She turned away and headed up the stairs to the second floor.
Not ten seconds later, a police cruiser with lights flashing turned up outside the house. Tricia threw open the door to welcome the uniformed officers.
Officer Henderson spoke first. “What’s this about a possible homicide?”
Why had Cleo reported Bunny’s death as such? As Angelica hypothesized, she could have hit her head and died of blood loss.
“Where do we find the victim?” Officer Cindy Pearson asked.
“Up the stairs, and turn left, the last bedroom down the hall.”
Nodding curtly, the officers jogged up the stairs with Tricia not more than a step behind them.
The officers stopped at the open doorway, looking in. “Hey,” Henderson called. “Get away from the body!”
Tricia peeked over the officer’s shoulders to see Cleo and Angelica standing over Bunny’s supine form. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The woman was clad in a filmy nightgown of what looked like silk, soaked with scarlet around a jagged hole at the waist. After a quick look around the room, Tricia surmised that the weapon that had killed poor Bunny was nowhere in sight—probably the perpetrator had taken it with him…or her.
Officer Henderson knelt down beside the body, felt for a pulse, apparently finding none, and spoke into the radio attached to his uniform blouse, asking for the county medical examiner to be alerted.
So, Bunny really was dead. Tricia wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She’d never been a fan of the woman, who seemed to be in sync with Tricia’s mother when it came to finding fault with the Mileses’ second daughter, but she’d never wished the woman dead.
Angelica stepped away from the body, her expression a mixture of grief and confusion. Cleo, however, seemed to have recovered from the shock Tricia had heard in her voice when she’d called upon finding Bunny’s body.
The officers herded the women out of the room, and Pearson guided them down to the first floor’s parlor. Angelica took a seat on the blue brocade love seat and Tricia sat on the matching chair, but Cleo crossed to the window, gazing over the brief patch of front lawn. The bulk of the estate lay behind the grand house.
Angelica pulled a tissue from her jacket pocket, wiping her nose. “Oh, goodness, I wish I hadn’t done it,” she muttered.
Pearson’s head jerked up, and she checked the camera attached to her uniform. “Are you confessing to the crime?”
Angelica blinked. “Crime?”
“The murder of that woman upstairs?”
“What? Of course not.”
“Angelica hasn’t been near the manor this afternoon or evening,” Tricia said, defending Angelica.
“You’re her sister,” Pearson practically spat. “You’re not a credible witness.”
“What?” Angelica cried.
“I’ll ask again, are you confessing to the crime?”
“Of course not,” Angelica said with conviction.
“Then what are you referring to?”
“Bunny was my houseguest, but I arranged for her to stay here at the manor—”
“Ange,” Tricia warned. If the cops were going to report Angelica as a possible suspect, at that moment, keeping her mouth shut was her best defense.
Angelica stared at her sister for long seconds before she nodded in understanding.
“What have you got to say?” Pearson asked Cleo.
“It was me who found Ms. Murdock. She left her phone in the kitchen and I wanted to return it to her. I checked the common areas before I went to her room. The door was open and…I found her, just as you saw.”
Pearson looked skeptical.
Tricia and the female officer had a rather rocky relationship. Pearson had nearly lost her job with the Stoneham Police Department two years earlier when it was revealed she had a relationship with a murder suspect and had kept it quiet. She’d been put on probation but had ultimately been kept on at the police department.
The women fell silent, listening to the officer’s squawk box as Henderson called for reinforcements, including summoning Chief McDonald.
Tricia’s mind raced to come up with various explanations for what might have happened. Although it wasn’t late, Bunny was clad in a nightgown—and it wasn’t flannel. Pink satin—or some facsimile—with a plunging neckline. Of course, lying as she was, covered in blood, the negligee looked anything but sexy. Had she donned it thinking she’d soon see her lover? John Miles seemed to be lurking nearby. Had he contacted Bunny before or after she’d arrived at the manor? And if so, was it for a tryst or to knock off his mistress, who might well implicate him in a crime? Bunny’s phone might answer that question.
Tricia couldn’t voice those thoughts, but as she glanced at her sister, she wondered if Angelica was coming to the same conclusions.
More flashing lights appeared outside the inn: a fire rescue truck, another patrol car, and Chief McDonald’s SUV. Had his evening with Becca been disturbed and was he likely to take out his pique on Tricia?
No. That wasn’t McDonald’s style. The same couldn’t be said for his predecessors.
The front door was propped open as more officers and the chief entered; the measure was sure to drive up the manor’s heating costs.
“Don’t say anything,” Pearson warned Tricia, Angelica, and Cleo, and stepped just outside the parlor’s door to have a word with the chief.
Back in high school, Tricia had learned American sign language as an elective course. This would have been the perfect time to communicate with Angelica. Unfortunately, the course had become available only after Angelica had graduated. Tricia wasn’t quite sure she remembered enough to communicate that. What she did clearly remember was the manual alphabet, but that didn’t help in this situation, either.
After a few long minutes of conversing with his officers, Chief McDonald entered the building and headed directly up the main staircase, no doubt to inspect the crime scene.
Meanwhile, Tricia, Angelica, and Cleo remained silent. The only sounds came from footsteps tromping around the upper floor and the growling of Tricia’s stomach. Despite the gruesome scene upstairs, her appetite hadn’t been completely suppressed. She’d never been a stress eater, but she could see how that might affect others.
Finally, thundering footsteps on the stairs announced McDonald’s reappearance. He entered the parlor, his gaze landing on Angelica. “I understand you’ve confessed to the murder.”
Angelica’s cheeks burned a brilliant red. “I most certainly did not!”
“Did you not say it was your fault Ms. Murdock was dead?”
“No! What I said was taken out of context.”
“And what is that context?”
“As I told Officer Pearson, I’m responsible for Bunny being here, but I had no hand in killing her.” Angelica explained the situation, including that Bunny wasn’t exactly the most hospitable guest—telling him of Bunny’s confession to being John Miles’s mistress, and that the supposedly dead man had been seen lurking around the area.
“So, you think your own father might have killed her?” McDonald asked, his voice more than a little judgmental.
Angelica sighed, and Tricia knew she was doing everything to keep her temper in check. “We’ve told you what we’ve learned about our parents and what’s gone down these last few months. I’m not throwing our father under the bus when I say that he—or our mother—may have had a motive to silence Bunny.”
Well, not really. For Tricia, it sounded exactly as though Angelica was offering up their parents as scapegoats to save herself. And yet, Tricia couldn’t fault Angelica for it. If nothing else, their mother had been perpetrating a scam on them—and they had no reason to think well of her. And yet…Tricia still held some kind of loyalty to the woman who birthed her, no matter what her faults. And for that, Tricia felt guilty. She should have abhorred the woman. That was the tragic course of abuse.
“Ian, Angelica has a rock-solid alibi. She was at the Cookery, and then she joined me for dinner, which was sadly interrupted by news of Bunny’s death.”
Tricia shot a glance in her sister’s direction, but Angelica’s expression wasn’t one of implicit innocence. And it was then Tricia remembered her sister had shown up late for their usual happy hour.
“I understand you found the deceased’s phone in the kitchen.”
“Yes,” Cleo answered. “One of the officers took charge of it.”
“Will you be searching it for information on Bunny’s last contacts?” Tricia asked, wondering if her father was among them.
McDonald nodded. “I assume all you ladies have cell phones.”
The three women nodded.
“Would you all be willing to turn them over to the local police department?”
“Why?” Cleo asked.
“To see what the tracking software has to say.”
“My phone is going to say that prior to Ms. Murdock’s death, I was on the property, albeit not in the main house. My living quarters are in the carriage house across the drive. Am I to be considered a suspect because of proximity?” Cleo demanded.
