by Paula Munier
Hay. Horses. Stables.
She pulled out her cell phone, swiping through the pics she’d taken doing research at the Elliott Academy. There it was: Katharine on the pretty Arabian chestnut, the stable boy at her side. The boy was not George; he was much taller, with deeper set eyes and a narrower jaw. She zoomed in on the young man’s left hand. Barely visible but recognizable nonetheless: a gold signet ring.
Why would George have this photo? What was his connection to Richard, the long-lost stable boy from the Elliott Academy? Why was he really here at Nemeton?
She snapped photos of the kit, its false bottom, and the photo on her cell.
Now it was time to talk to Feinberg.
And his butler.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Paladin: a combat-trained adventurer sworn to fight for justice, protecting the innocent and battling evil wherever it is to be found.
—HENRY’S GAME
WHEN MERCY SLIPPED OUT OF GEORGE’S ROOM, to her great relief, the butler was not standing outside the door. She went to her room and grabbed the Elliott Academy yearbook and went to find George.
She found him in the kitchen, where he was supervising the imminent serving of an elaborate brunch, designed to keep the guests out of their rooms and out of trouble.
“I need to speak to Daniel right away.”
George raised an eyebrow, and for a moment she thought he was going to balk. But then he shrugged and said, “Follow me.”
He led her to the study, where the billionaire was at his desk. George bowed, preparing to leave, but she blocked him from the door. “Stay. We need to talk to you.”
“What’s this all about?” asked George with a hint of irritation. “What’s that book you have there?”
“First things first.” She gave George her I’m an MP and you’re not glare of intimidation, and he didn’t even blink. Which meant he was former law enforcement or military or both.
“Who are you? Really?”
“I’m George Wilcox. Of Lancashire.”
“Wilcox.” She remembered Dr. Wright. I think his name was Richard. Williams or Wilson. Watson, maybe. Something like that. “And how are you connected to Richard Wilcox?”
“I know no Richard Wilcox.”
“Who is Richard Wilcox?” asked Feinberg.
“The stable boy at Elliott Academy when your hunting party were students there. According to Dr. Wright, he assaulted Katharine. Caspar Farrow rescued her. Wilcox was going to be dismissed, so he ran off.”
“Nonsense.” George stood tall against the accusation.
Mercy pulled her cell from her pocket and swiped to the photo of Katharine and the stable boy. She showed Feinberg the photo. “I found this in his room, hidden in his toiletries kit. In a very slick false bottom. Note the signet ring on the boy’s hand. Just like the one George wears. On his left pinkie finger.”
“George?” The billionaire gave George a look that would freeze the heart of most mortals. Icier even than Mercy’s MP glare.
Still didn’t faze this tough-as-nails butler.
“Does that look like assault to you?” asked George, his plummy English accent broadening with emotion.
“No, it doesn’t,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you tell us about it?”
“He was in love with her. He wanted to marry her. That’s what he wrote home to his mother. My sister-in-law Marian.” George’s eyes clouded for a moment. “My brother died of cancer quite young, when Richard was ten years old. The boy was devoted to his mother, and she to him. She missed him terribly when he went off to America. He wrote her every week for two years. Then nothing. That letter was the last time she ever heard from him. The last time any of us ever heard from him.”
“You looked for him.” It was a statement, not a fact.
“When the letters stopped coming, I made the usual inquiries. All the school would say was that he’d been fired for cause, and that he disappeared before they could file charges. He’d sent me the photo, a bit of bragging, I suppose, about his beautiful American lover. I knew there must be more to the story than the school would admit. I reckon the girl’s parents found out and had him fired. That’s usually how it goes at places like that, isn’t it? The rich kids get a great education, and the poor kids get sacked.” He looked at his boss. “No offense.”
“None taken. Please go on.”
“Marian never believed the accusations against him, but the worry killed her anyway. She died six months later.”
“Why come looking now?” she asked.
George hung his head for a moment before lifting it again. “After she died, I put it out of my mind. I was a young police officer in Lancashire, busy with solving cases right there at home. But when I retired, I decided to find out once and for all what happened to Richard. I felt I owed it to Marian. And to my dead brother.”
“You’re not a real butler.” Feinberg’s voice was incredulous. Mercy understood why; George did seem every inch a true butler. At least the PBS kind of butler she was familiar with. But then he’d fooled the billionaire, too.
“I did a lot of undercover work. And I knew the Montgomerys traveled in rich circles. It seemed a good way in.”
“You came highly recommended.” Feinberg shifted in his seat. She thought he looked embarrassed. She couldn’t imagine it was an emotion he experienced often.
“I had some assistance there. My chief inspector put in a good word with the agency.”
“It worked,” said Feinberg.
“Troy will check him out for us.” Mercy was growing impatient. She wanted to get to the bottom of this. “What have you found out?”
“There’s no record of Richard anywhere. If he did disappear, he did a bloody good job of it.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“I can’t believe that Richard would let his mother suffer that way. He may have been a bit barmy, but he was a good son.” He reached inside his jacket and retrieved something from the hidden breast pocket. “You should see this. I found it in Alice de Clare’s room.”
George handed her an old postcard, featuring the wildflowers of Switzerland. Alpenblumen, read the caption on the address side. Alpine flowers, translated Mercy. The rest of the card—where you’d write a note or the address of the recipient—was blank. She passed it on to Feinberg.
“You tampered with evidence,” she said to George.
“It was before she died. While I was unpacking her things. I was going to return it. But then…”
“But then she was murdered.”
“Correct. And I wasn’t going to give it to that wanker Harrington. Not before I figured out what it meant. If anything.”
“And did you?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Anything else you’d like to share?”
He shook his head.
“Really?
The faux butler squared his shoulders. Mercy knew he was holding something back, but she also knew he wouldn’t spill until he was good and ready. If ever.
“That will be all, George.” As soon as the butler had gone, Feinberg turned to Mercy. “I’ll deal with Wilcox. Now what?”
“We keep on digging. Meanwhile, you keep an eye on your butler.”
* * *
FEINBERG ACCOMPANIED MERCY down to the dining room, where George was ushering in the guests for brunch. At the long formal dining table, Ethan sat on one side of Henry, Troy on the other. The Montgomerys were there, along with Lea and William. All looking weary and bleary-eyed. Between the murders and the booze, the elegant façade of the hunting party was slipping. And the free-flowing champagne at this brunch wasn’t helping. Cara was having breakfast in bed, her façade undoubtedly intact.
“Henry, how are you feeling?”
The boy did not answer her; he was too busy feasting on peanut-butter toast and slipping the crusts to Elvis and Susie Bear under the table.
“That’s enough people food for Elvis,” she told him.
Ge
orge brought her a breakfast plate and she placed it on the table but did not sit down.
“Could you spare a minute?” she said to Troy between bites of a Danish. “Henry, stay here with your father and the dogs.” Mercy glanced at Feinberg, who nodded.
“Sure,” said Troy.
They excused themselves and went to the map room, the room Henry loved. They shut the door, stepping into a darkly furnished library full of freestanding antique globes. Vintage maps graced mahogany-paneled walls. Finely crafted architectural desks rimmed the room, undoubtedly full of rare maps. She could see why Henry loved this space. They stood next to a beautiful globe that must date from the early Forties, given the changing shape of Europe at the time.
She told him about George and his nephew. She showed him the old postcard George found in Alice’s room.
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. All of them spent time at the Elliott Academy campus in the Swiss Alps, not far from where Alice was born. There’s got to be a connection. Since she’s adopted, the simplest explanation is that she’s related to someone from Elliott.”
“You think Katharine and Blake were Alice de Clare’s parents?”
“It would explain some things, though not why she or Caspar Farrow were killed. And why give up baby Alice for adoption? Blake had plenty of money.”
“Maybe they weren’t ready.”
“Maybe Katharine wasn’t ready to give up her chance at Olympic gold. Blake said himself that she loved her horses more than anything or anyone.”
“That doesn’t explain why Alice was murdered. If she is their daughter, why kill her? And why kill Farrow?” Troy placed the postcard next to one of the globes. “I think the Buskey brothers are our best bet. We know they’ve gone after Henry. Because he saw them kill Alice.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t explain Farrow. I feel like I’m missing something.” She spun the globe absently. She gazed at the globe, running her finger across the Swiss Alps. “Alpenblumen.”
“What?”
She reached for the postcard. There were three photos on the decorative side of the card, each a close-up of an Alpine flower. “There’s a reason Alice kept this.”
“Alice liked flowers.” Troy shrugged. “Her scarf had flowers on it, and there was a flower on the pin that held the peregrine feathers on her hat.”
“Tyrolean.” She grinned at him.
“Right.” He grinned back.
“There was a flower on her daybook, too.”
“It’s got to be more than her just liking flowers.” She examined the postcard again. “She kept this old postcard for a reason. And she wore that silver flowered fastener with the peregrine falcon feathers on her hat for a reason.”
“Not just fashion?”
“I don’t think so. All of her other clothes and accessories and accoutrements—from her daybook to her lingerie—are twenty-first-century chic. No vintage—except for these two items.”
She pointed to the photo on the left of the postcard, which featured a small white star-shaped bloom. “This is an edelweiss.”
“I recognize that one.”
“Do you?”
“Even I’ve seen The Sound of Music.”
She laughed. “Okay.” She tapped the picture on the right, the one of a pretty bloom with purple petals and a yellow center. “And this is an aster.”
“And the one in the middle?”
“I think it’s an Alpine rose.”
“If you say so.” Troy stared at the image. “It looks like the flower on the fastener.”
“Yes. Alice brought the postcard and that fastener with her all the way from Paris here to Nemeton. Why?”
“You got me.”
“If she were looking for her birth parents, wouldn’t she bring whatever clues she might have to their identity with her?”
“That would make sense.”
“Blake said they played Scrabble and Boggle all night, and that the girls always won,” she said, as much to herself as to Troy.
“The girls?”
“Lea and Katharine. Apparently they’re both really good at word games.” She looked around, desperate for a pen and paper. “Is there anything to write on in here that’s not worth a fortune?”
Troy pulled a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “And you call yourself a detective.”
“No, I don’t.” She grabbed the notebook and the pen and sat in one of the leather upholstered chairs flanking a long map-reading table.
He sat beside her. “What’s up?”
She tore three sheets of paper from the notebook, laid them on table, and printed out the words: Edelweiss. Aster. Alpine rose.
“What are you doing?”
“Lea studied nature photography in Switzerland.”
“I still don’t see the connection.”
She scribbled down the letters of the word edelweiss, shuffling them around in her mind and on the page. If Henry could see letters the way he saw numbers, he could solve this in a minute. But she was no Henry.
“What exactly are you doing?” Troy looked bewildered.
“I’m trying to figure something out.”
She wasn’t getting anywhere with edelweiss. She thought about aster, and came up with tears, stare, taser, rates. She tried Alpine rose, drawing a blank. Too many possibilities, none of which fit properly.
“I’ll help you if you just let me know what you’re doing.”
“Doesn’t matter. Dead end.” She sat there for a moment, feeling defeated. She picked up the postcard again. “I know I’m missing something.”
“Relax. You’ll figure it out.” Troy smiled at her. “You always do.”
She smiled back. “I appreciate your faith in me, however misplaced.” She turned the card over to the address side and read the caption again: Alpenblumen.
She dropped the card onto the table and snapped her fingers. “It’s Alpenrose, not Alpine rose.”
“English, please.”
She laughed. “Exactly. Edelweiss and aster are the German words for edelweiss and aster. But Alpine rose is Alpenrose in German.”
“That explains it.” He rolled his eyes.
“Hold on.” On the sheet marked Alpine rose, she crossed out that word and wrote Alpenrose underneath it. She shuffled the letters around in her head and on the page. She whooped. “Yes!” She looked at Troy. “It’s an anagram.”
“Show me.”
She tapped the pen on the paper where she’d printed LEA PERSON in block letters under the Alpenrose. “Lea Person is an anagram of Alpenrose.”
“Lea Person?”
“Person was Lea’s maiden name.” Mercy smiled. “Alpenrose.”
Troy’s phone beeped. “Hold that thought.” He read the text, looked up at her. Thrasher sent me the list of the license plates associated with the full numbers Henry gave us. They’re still working on the partial from the SUV that tried to run you off the road.”
“That was fast. I guess we have Feinberg to thank for that.”
“And the captain.” He pulled up the list on his phone, and they looked at it together. The phone listed all the times and comings and goings of cars in the parking lot. One car was on the list that shouldn’t have been there, the car that was supposedly not there that morning, William Montgomery’s Escalade. License-plate number 26050.
“George told us that William had not yet arrived that morning.” She gave the globe another spin. “I knew he wasn’t telling us everything. He lied.”
“Why?”
“I think I know.” She showed him the photo of Katharine in bed with the man with the signet ring. “According to George, this picture proves that she was sleeping with his nephew Richard. Maybe Richard is William’s father.”
“Not Blake?”
“It was the early Eighties. Everybody was sleeping with everybody.”
“It fits.” He gazed at the photo of the young lovers. “That would make the butler Will
iam’s granduncle. Is that why George gave him an alibi? To protect his grandnephew?”
“I think so. And he’s still protecting him.” She paused. “There’s more here than meets the eye and I can’t seem to figure it out.”
“You will.”
“You go back to Henry and Ethan,” she said. “I want to search William’s room while everyone is still downstairs at brunch.”
He pulled a pair of plastic gloves from his pocket and handed them to her. “Be careful.”
Troy left her, and she made her way to William’s room at the end of the hall. His was one of the smaller rooms, though nicely decorated with twin beds dressed in Ralph Lauren plaid and navy linen walls. She slipped on the gloves and carefully searched the messy space. Clothes on the floor, jewelry cluttering dresser tops, snowboard magazines strewn about. Lots of hair product. Porn magazines tucked under the mattress.
Trust fund playboy, she thought.
In the walk-in closet were snowboards, snowshoes, and a large sports-equipment locker. The locker had padlock on it. She pulled her Swiss Army knife from her pocket and retracted its thinnest tool. Picking locks was one of the things Martinez had taught her to do between missions. Something to do when there was nothing else to do but wait. She got pretty good at it. Sliding the tool in the lock, she jiggled it just right—and tripped the lock. She pulled the shackle out, removed the lock, and opened the door. Inside the locker were cross-country skis and boots and poles. Stuffed into the boots she found pharmaceuticals. Opioids.
So much for rehab, she thought.
There were several ski sleeves as well. She unzipped them one by one, and inside she found skis. Until the last sleeve, which held a longbow. Maybe the longbow used to kill Alice.
She snapped photos on her cell of the boots, the drugs, the longbow in the ski sleeve. She left everything as it was, replacing the lock and slipping her knife back into her pocket.
She searched the closet and the room again for the missing quiver of arrows, but she found nothing. Still, she now had some of the proof she needed. Troy would help her sort out the rest.