Love You to Death

by Grant Michaels

  On the crest, I jogged along the curving road until I finally saw the Kingsley house ahead. Then my stomach lurched. There in the driveway was John Lough’s staid sedan alongside Liz Carlini’s glitzy touring car. The house lights were on, and all seemed quiet and peaceful. Had he killed her already? I moved stealthily around to the back of the house, to the dramatic expanse of sea, sky, and land. The heavens were clear and dense with stars—a sight rarely seen in the city—and the moon’s bluish light cast sparkles on the ocean water. How could cold-blooded murders happen in a setting like this? But that same moonlight also gave the wet grassy land an eery glow. I heard the surf bashing and pounding against the jagged rocks lying beneath the high bluff at the edge of the property.

  I turned my eyes toward the house. The solarium glowed with a hospitable warmth from within that seemed to say, Welcome to murderland. Through the glass walls I could see John Lough and Liz Carlini inside. She was seated and still very much alive, but John was standing over her with a gun aimed at her neck. On my cat-quiet feet, I slipped silently into the house through one of the side doors. Once inside, I crept soundlessly toward the solarium until I could overhear their words. John Lough was trying to force Liz to sign something.

  “Why should I sign it?” she asked smartly. “Go ahead, John, shoot me. What will you get then?”

  “I told you, it’s not for me. It’s for her. There was supposed to be a trust for Mary when Helen Kingsley died.”

  “Where is it then, John? Maybe there never was a trust. Maybe it was all in Mary’s mind. Or maybe it’s all a lie, and Helen Kingsley never intended to provide for her the way Mary claims.”

  “Then it’s up to you to do it now.”

  “I don’t owe Mary Phinney anything. Besides, I’m helpless. The estate is in probate.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “So what are you going to do about it? You’ve already killed Danny and Prentiss. Are you going to shoot me just to find out that I’m telling you the truth?”

  “I don’t care about them. Mary is right, they were perverts anyway. It’s no loss that they’re gone.”

  “So now there’s just one more person to remove. Is that what you’re thinking, John? Then you and Mary can have the whole company in your fat little hands. Is that what you want?”

  “We deserve it. Prentiss had everything handed to him, while I had to work and work.”

  “He was a Kingsley. He had every right to his mother’s money. He was her flesh and blood.”

  “But I’m blood too. I’m his half brother. You’re just his wife. I have more right than you.”

  Liz was about to counter that remark when I rushed in behind John and put my Slavic limbs to their magic work. My legs, at least, are still full of young kick. It took just one swift boot under his arm, the one that was holding the gun, to set it off and send it flying through the air. The bullet hit one of the huge glass panels in the solarium roof high overhead. The tempered glass shattered and showered us with pebbly crystalline pellets. The next second, I knocked John Lough behind his knees, and he fell to the floor. I straddled him from behind and pinned him down.

  Liz exclaimed, “Thank God you’ve come!”

  “Where the hell’s your bodyguard?” I asked. Liz positioned herself behind me. I said, “What are you waiting for, Liz? Call the police.”

  “There’s an emergency at the marina,” she said calmly. “All police personnel are there.”

  “Bad timing. We need help here.”

  “That all depends,” she said, her voice now strangely untroubled.

  From his facedown position on the floor, John Lough was struggling against my weight. “Let me go,” he said. “You’ve got it all wrong.” He twisted his head backwards and was looking up at me. Then his eyes shifted to something going on behind me. I turned my head.

  Liz was holding John Lough’s gun and aiming it directly at the two of us on the floor.

  “You meddlesome little twit,” she said to me. “I arranged that false alarm down at the marina just to keep the local police occupied tonight. I wasn’t taking any chances. A bomb scare is the most exciting event that’s happened out here in fifty years. I invited John here for a little conference, a final settling of accounts, but I certainly didn’t expect him to arrive armed.” She shifted her eyes toward me. “Now, thanks to you and your fumbling intrusion, I’m back in charge of the situation. The rest of this ought to be easy.”

  “She’ll kill me,” said John, from under me.

  “That’s right,” said Liz.

  Finally, stupidly, I realized the truth. “It’s you, Liz. You’re the one.”

  “Who else? Who else could have had such lousy luck right from the very beginning?”

  “At the gala reception?”

  “That stranger ate the truffle I’d prepared for Dan Doherty. God, what confusion.”

  “Why did you want to poison Dan?”

  “To save my marriage. My husband was losing his senses. He’d named Dan Doherty as an heir. Imagine that? A whole corporate fortune was about to be redistributed because of a young man’s charms.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I replied, and recalled that I had ascribed the same motive for Dan’s killing to Mary Phinney, except that she hadn’t acted on it.

  John Lough said, “He was going to get my share.”

  Without acknowledging him, Liz continued. “I tried logic, I tried emotion, I even tried lying—but nothing would change Prentiss’s mind. He was smitten with Danny, blinded by his feelings for him. So killing Danny was the simplest answer.”

  “You could have given up the money.”

  Liz ignored me. “And there’d be two ideal suspects—Rafik, that charming gold digger who expected Dan to give him whatever he wanted, and John here, whose fundamentalist beliefs and insane jealousy of Prentiss might drive him to kill a young homosexual. “

  “I didn’t do any of it!” screamed John Lough. “I wanted to, but I didn’t.” He seemed on the verge of crying, which surprised me, given his appearance of strength. Liz ordered me to get off him and let him up, so I did. But John remained crouched on the floor, trembling in fear. I stood up and faced Liz.

  “But that first attempt to kill Danny failed,” I said.

  “Yes, and the truffle flavors got confused too. Prentiss could have been poisoned by accident. Fortunately the police believed the most obvious thing—that Laurett Cole had clumsily killed her boyfriend.” She smiled slyly. “You see? There are advantages to being educated, professional, and white.”

  “But you still wanted to kill Danny.”

  “Yes, and it was simply a matter of timing. I knew he was staying here in Abigail with Prentiss, and I knew that Prentiss went for a run every morning. It was his only addiction, bless his boring purity. He ran every morning between seven-thirty and eight-thirty, like clockwork.”

  “So if you came here within that hour, you’d be pretty sure that Prentiss would be gone.”

  “Yes. And if by chance Prentiss was here, well, I do have a right to come to my own house in Abigail, don’t I? Besides, I might simply have wanted to warn him of John’s threats.”

  “I never threatened you,” John Lough wailed.

  “But Prentiss wouldn’t know that,” replied Liz smugly.

  John went on, “You have no right. The money is ours.”

  I was concerned more with Liz Carlini and the gun she held than with John Lough’s pleas about money. “How did you get Danny alone?” I asked.

  “That was tricky, since now I intended the blame for Danny’s death to fall on Rafik. The timing was crucial. So, when I got to the center of town, I called the house on my mobile phone.

  “That’s why Ben remembered your arriving earlier.”

  “Yes. He seems to remember everything but my name. The engine was stalling terribly that morning, and I had to stop for help. While Ben adjusted something under the hood, I used the car phone to tell Rafik that the Immigration and Natura
lization Service had come to the factory looking for him. And since he’d been working without proper papers, he wouldn’t want to be found.”

  “So your phone call scared him away from the house long enough for you to go in and kill Danny.”

  “Yes, it really was that simple. You see, Vannos, like any shrewd business person, I know how to adapt to changing circumstances, how to exploit an opportunity.”

  “But how did you manage to kill Danny so intimately?”

  “Another lucky break. He was asleep. The room smelled of sex. I imagined Prentiss mounting him, and the idea that he would choose a young man instead of me—it made me furious.”

  “But you didn’t know for sure that it was Prentiss.”

  “I suspected it, and that was enough. When I saw Danny lying facedown on the bed, his body was still glistening with sweat. It was so easy. The muzzle of the gun almost slipped right in.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Don’t you judge me! You don’t know what I’ve been through. My marriage was a sham. My life had no meaning. The new business was my only hope. Then Danny showed up and Prentiss lost his reason.” Liz sneered. “What a fool I was, thinking that once Danny was dead, Prentiss would reinstate me in the will.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “No. In fact, he wanted to name this brain-dead creature”—she pointed the gun at John Lough—“as his heir.”

  John interjected, “It is mine by right.”

  “Not if you’re dead,” replied Liz.

  I asked, “Why did Prentiss cut you out of the will?”

  Liz snickered. “He discovered something that made me unworthy of the sacred Kingsley money.”

  “Not another man?”

  She laughed. “You are so simple, Vannos.”

  John Lough remained crouched on the floor. He had covered his ears and was shaking his head. Apparently the facts were too difficult for him to bear.

  Liz said, “Poor thing. It’s almost not worth killing him.”

  “Why do it then?”

  “You both know too much.”

  “It has to stop sometime, Liz. You’ll surely be caught for killing us.”

  “Then it won’t matter if I do it.”

  I obviously had to stall her until … when? Hadn’t Branco alerted the local police yet?

  “But why did you kill Prentiss, Liz?”

  She smiled coyly. “You’re trying to buy time, aren’t you?” She shrugged. “Why not tell you then? At that point it was the only way I could still get anything from the estate. See, even though Prentiss had explicitly cut me out as his wife, I still stood to inherit what he’d intended for Danny until he named another heir.”

  “But I thought you said John Lough was the next heir.”

  “Prentiss hadn’t made the change yet, which is why I had to act quickly.”

  “But then you’d be the prime suspect.”

  “Not really. I wasn’t in the will. Technically I had no motive for killing my husband.”

  “But wouldn’t Dan Doherty’s inheritance go to his heirs?”

  Liz let out a sly giggle. “Dan Doherty, with typical youthful arrogance, assumed that he would live forever, or at least longer than Prentiss. He left his entire estate to Prentiss in a gesture of false gratitude. Everything kind of canceled itself out.”

  “So then you killed Prentiss.”

  “Yes, but now the time and place were a challenge. I decided to do it at that rest area on the highway near Dykes Pond. I’d heard it’s a place where men meet for sex.”

  “How did you arrange to meet him?”

  “I got a Boston taxi driver to call and leave a message on the phone machine here in Abigail, saying that he wanted to meet Danny at the rest stop. It’s amazing what people will do for money. The taxi driver thought it was a kinky joke.”

  “But Danny was already dead.”

  “Yes, and I knew that would arouse Prentiss’s curiosity. Even if his relationship to Danny was platonic, there was still jealousy. That’s one thing Prentiss was quite good at … being jealous. So I dressed the way a gay man does when he’s out for sex—blue jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket, boots—and went to meet him there.”

  “We don’t all use the same drag, Liz. But it was still dangerous. You could have been seen.”

  “The risks are high when the stakes are high. I waited until Prentiss’s car was the only one at the rest stop. Then it was simply a matter of getting him to lower the window and then putting the gun in his mouth.”

  “Didn’t he resist?”

  “It’s strange,” she said, and a pensive look passed over her face. “Not at all. He seemed almost to want it to happen.”

  “Did he know it was you?”

  “I don’t see how he couldn’t. Our eyes met.”

  Who knows what drives people to act out their death wish?

  “And the shots fired at your house? How did you manage to do that undetected?”

  Liz smiled. “It was another opportunity that begged to be exploited. All three neighbors with a limited view of our property were on vacation. It was still risky, but no one saw or heard. And it put suspicion on John.”

  “Why me?” cried John Lough.

  “Because it served my purpose,” replied Liz.

  “Liz, where does all this get you in the end?”

  She laughed. “I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that I didn’t just sit idly by, hoping for things to change, bemoaning my lot in life. I did something about it. I took action. I showed strength.”

  “Even if it meant killing people.”

  She shrugged. “This time, that’s what it meant.”

  I shook my head. “I actually feel sorry for you.”

  “Go tell it to the village priest. Now let’s get going. We’re taking a little walk, the three of us. I hope you’ll enjoy your last stroll by the water.”

  She kept the gun on John and me and directed us out of the solarium toward the bluff. I tried to keep her talking, hoping to reason my way out of this jam, at least until the local police arrived. What was taking them so damn long? Then I had an unsettling thought: What if Branco hadn’t even called them?

  Out on the bluff overlooking the private beach I asked Liz, “What was it that Prentiss found out to make him cut you off in his will? Was it that you’d had an abortion?”

  “Clever of you to guess. Yes, I got rid of it. I wasn’t about to share anything with my offspring.”

  “Even a possible Kingsley heiress?”

  “I was sick of hearing about the Kingsley bloodline. I wanted my share free and clear of anything or anybody.”

  “But you killed three innocent people. You took matters into your hands that you had no right to.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not accusing me of murdering the fetus too, with your self-righteous piety.”

  “That choice should be the woman’s.”

  “Hah! You liberal sons of bitches really get me. It’s easy for you to talk—you’re a man. But I’ve had to struggle. I’ve had to sacrifice. I’ve given up the pleasure of my life for what I have, and no old ghost of a mother or two-timing young designer was going to ruin my chances.”

  “So Prentiss and Danny were lovers.”

  Liz shook her head. “Never,” she said. “There was never a sexual thing between them. It was a simple father-son thing. It had to be. Prentiss simply wanted Dan to have some security.”

  “It was so simple you had to kill them both.”

  John Lough spluttered, “You’re all a bunch of perverts. You’ll all burn in hell.”

  “Dear, sad John,” said Liz Carlini. “If there is such a place, we’ll all be meeting there. At least we’ll confirm its existence. That ought to satisfy at least one question of your faith.”

  She pressed us onward to the edge of the bluff. We stopped short of the precipice, and she said, “Now I’d like you both to embrace each other before you throw yourselves over the edge.”

  “Oh, no!�
�� wailed John Lough, as he peered down into the craggy surf well over a hundred feet below. “She’s really going to kill me.”

  “We’re in this together, pal,” I said.

  John pleaded with her. “Maybe we could work something out. I’d give up any claim to the estate. I’ll forget about the trust for Mary. Anything. I promise. Just please let me go.”

  “You silly man. You have nothing to give up. Now just hold on to each other. I want it to look like a pathetic lover’s pact. Think of the tragedy. The world has turned its back on you. Danny and Prentiss are gone now. There’s nothing left to live for. Just embrace and jump. It’s very simple.”

  Simple, simple, simple.

  “Find another word,” I muttered, and I rammed John Lough’s heavy body into her. She fired the gun and he went down. His falling seemed to surprise her. Before she could take good aim at me, I shoved her hard and knocked her to the ground. We wrestled for the gun. I struggled to get it from her while she tried to aim it at me. She was strong and wily, but my beautician’s hands are strong and clever too. Finally I wrangled the gun from her. Then I stood up and heaved it over the bluff onto the rocks far below.

  When I turned back, Liz was already running away. I raced after her on my springy Slavic limbs. I caught up to her and tackled. Me, who’d never played football in my life—now I was chasing women and knocking them down. I pinned her to the ground. She bit and clawed and kicked at me. She was lively and wriggly, and worse, dangerous. But that extra weight I carry around with me finally came in handy. I pressed myself onto her heavily and pinned her to the ground. Then I removed my belt. After a lengthy and breathy struggle, I succeeded in binding her wrists to her ankles behind her. S/M bondage came to mind, and I mumbled an apology for taking a step backwards for women’s rights.

  One thing I was never much good at, though, was tying knots, especially with leather belts. Almost as soon as I released the pressure of my body, Liz squirmed her way out of the belt. She got up and fled to the edge of the bluff.