Into the Frying Pan

by Sarah Osborne

  “No thanks. I won’t go far. You stay with Danny. If an officer wants me, I won’t be out of sight.”

  I did need some time alone. Was Harper right? Did Phil want to marry her after all these years? And did it matter if he did? It took me so long to realize he never planned to marry me. Was I still resentful about that?

  I sighed loud enough to make people around me glance in my direction.

  Phil had none of my father’s compassion or concern for others. I was no longer sure Phil had the capacity to love anyone but himself.

  How could I have been such a fool and for such a long time, and was I still not seeing Phil clearly? Could he in fact be a murderer, cunning enough to make it seem he was being framed?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I looked over the battlefield. Most of the reenactors had left. Andy and Frank approached Lurleen’s tent from the near end of the field, and I walked down the hill to meet them.

  Andy kept running his hand through his hair. “This is terrible,” he said. “Poor Harper.”

  Frank stood behind him. “What the hell is going on?” he said. His face was mottled— either from the heat or from rage, I couldn’t tell which. “First Carl and now Ryan. How do we know we won’t be next?”

  “Have the police spoken with you both?” I asked.

  “They have.” Andy said. “We were on artillery, about as far away from the infantry as you can get—on this side of the field. We were near Harper and the cavalry as a matter of fact.”

  “We didn’t know who’d been shot for fifteen minutes at least,” Frank said.

  “Did you see Harper?” I asked.

  “I saw her before the battle started,” Frank said, “walking to the stable where the horses were kept. Then later, after we heard that a man was down, she rode over to ask if we knew what had happened? Of course we didn’t.”

  Andy had been staring at my arm the whole time Frank was talking. “How’d you do that?”

  “I fell in the tunnel and scraped it against the wall.” I looked at both of them to see if either registered something close to guilt.

  Andy took my arm gently. “You know you didn’t break anything?” he asked, examining it.

  “Just abrasions. I must have tripped on something.”

  Andy looked at me. “On what? The tunnel is asphalt with a narrow row of loose stones along the edges.”

  “You’ve been through it?” I asked.

  “Sure. I walk through it every time I come.”

  “What about you, Frank?” I asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Have you been through the tunnel?”

  “I’m not really that interested in history. I’m mostly here as Phil’s friend.”

  “So you haven’t been through it?” I asked.

  “Sure you have,” Andy said. “I told you that you needed to see it—time standing still—and I saw you headed in that direction today. Didn’t you walk through it?”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, I did, but as I said it didn’t impress me all that much. It was just a hole through a hill.”

  Andy shook his head. “You’re incorrigible. Nothing impresses you.”

  “Give me a first-class bourbon or an original Van Gogh, and I’m impressed,” he said.

  I let the matter drop. Frank had walked through the tunnel, so why was he so reluctant to say so?

  Andy and Frank sat on the tent stools Lurleen offered them and said yes to some iced tea.

  She fished it out of a cooler.

  “It’s good to be off my feet and out of the full sun,” Frank said. “What a bloody mess this all is. I wish I’d stayed away. I almost did.”

  “What were you two doing when Ryan got shot?”

  “We were manning a Confederate cannon,” Frank said.

  “We made sure it was a reproduction, steel reinforced,” Andy said. “You can bet I examined it closely.”

  “There are a lot of people who might be glad to see Carl dead,” I said, “but why would anyone want to kill Ryan?”

  “Maybe he knew too much,” Frank said. “Or maybe Ryan had something to do with Carl’s death.”

  Lurleen pretended to be fussing with putting away supplies. I knew she was listening to every word.

  “You’re suggesting a second murderer,” I said. “Getting even for the death of Carl.”

  “Or maybe it’s simpler than that—someone wants to frame Phil for both murders,” Andy said.

  “Who would want to do that?” I asked.

  Andy flushed and ran his fingers through his hair. “It would be a way to get the spotlight off everyone else.”

  Frank spoke up. “You do know Sally didn’t just disappear second year. She was expelled for cheating.”

  I nodded.

  “Carl blamed Phil for what happened to Sally,” Frank said.

  “Phil denied he had anything to do with that,” I said, “and claimed Carl had invented the whole story.”

  Frank looked sheepish.

  “What is it, Frank?” I asked.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now. Phil and I used to talk about how easy it would be to scam the system. We were never going to do it. When Sally was on probation and about to flunk out, I think Phil suggested she talk to an IT friend of ours to see what he could do for her.”

  “So Phil wasn’t as innocent as he claimed to be,” I said.

  “That’s as far as it went. He didn’t twist Sally’s arm, just made a suggestion.”

  “And then he gave her name to the authorities,” I said. “Not much of a friend.”

  Frank took a long slow breath. “He’s been a good friend to me—told me the truth about Harper when I needed to hear it. But Phil always looks out for himself.”

  “Sally must hate him,” I said.

  “I think she did in the beginning,” Andy said. “Later she told me that the best thing Phil ever did was get her kicked out of school, so she could pursue her real interest in finance. I didn’t know at the time that she didn’t have an MBA or a degree in financial planning. I might not have hired her if I’d known.”

  “You still believe she wasn’t involved in embezzling funds from you?”

  Andy shrugged. “It’s over and done with.”

  “Maybe it’s finished for you,” Frank said, “but I don’t forget when someone screws me over.”

  We both stared at him.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Did you have a run-in with Carl or Sally?”

  “That’s none of your business. Why can’t you leave all this alone? You have to keep digging up the past. You probably know about all of it anyway, the way this crowd gossips.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t open season on old secrets,” Frank said. “I don’t know why you turned up here today.”

  He stood. “I need a walk. Want to come, Andy?”

  Andy shook his head and moved over to the stool next to me.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what set Frank off,” Andy said. “Maybe it’s Harper. She’s still a sore topic for him. I think he really loved her. They got engaged at the end of their residencies and planned a big Texas wedding—the kind that gets publicized in the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle. Then the whole thing blew up. Frank found out that Harper couldn’t have children. She’d lied to him about that, so he broke off the engagement. Six months later Harper married Ryan.”

  “I know about Harper’s infertility,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “Rough deal, but the problem for Frank was more that Harper hadn’t told him the truth. Frank hates to be lied to or taken advantage of. He doesn’t get over that—ever.”

  “How did he find out?”


  “Phil told him after he heard about the engagement,” Andy said.

  “And how did Phil know?”

  “I can’t answer that one,” Andy said. “Sally claimed she was the only one who knew since she took Harper to doctor’s appointments and covered for her when she was on call and too sick to come in. Maybe she told Phil.”

  Andy rubbed his head and asked for more iced tea, which Lurleen happily supplied. She sat down next to him.

  “It seemed Harper worked hard to keep her infertility a secret,” Lurleen said.

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “Then when her father died last year, she didn’t seem to care who knew.”

  Lurleen spoke up. “Harper talked a lot about her dad at the party and what a great man he was and how he always got what he wanted in a take-no-prisoners kind of way. What he wanted from Harper was a thoroughbred line of grandchildren. I’ll bet she never told him she couldn’t give him that.”

  I turned to Lurleen. “How did you possibly get that out of Harper?”

  “She likes to drink, and when she does she gets pretty loose with her words and her actions,” Lurleen said. “Maybe she saw me as a kindred soul. She told me how lucky I was to be unmarried, and then she told me about how men had harmed her in the past—giving her sexually transmitted diseases that left her infertile.”

  Andy looked uncomfortable, but he stayed put.

  Lurleen continued her story. “She told me how she’d dealt with the men. I doubt that half of what she said was true, but the other half gave me goosebumps. According to Harper, she made sure all the men had “accidents” when they were too drunk to know what they were doing, so they couldn’t harm other women sexually.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “She said it was good for those men to know what it felt like to be impotent.”

  “I can’t believe that,” I said. “How would she even know who gave her the diseases?”

  “Harper didn’t seem to care about that. She said there’s always collateral damage in times of war. If a few innocent men were harmed, it couldn’t be helped.”

  “Harper’s a big talker,” Andy said. “She gets dramatic when she drinks, but I don’t think you can believe half of what she says. I’ve seen her softer side. She was kind to me when I split with Jenna, and she was comforting to Kathy after her miscarriages.”

  Andy tended to see everyone’s softer side I thought. Then I wondered if he’d ever been involved romantically with Harper.

  There was a tough edge to Harper—I’d felt it but never been able to put a name to it. I began to wonder if she was capable of murder—now two murders. But she wasn’t near either one of the victims at the time. Of course, these murders were carefully planned, maybe from a distance. Still, how could Harper have made sure Carl was the only one killed when the cannon exploded? How could she have gotten Phil to let Carl pull the lanyard and stand alone on the left side of the cannon? How could she have persuaded Phil to fire at Ryan when she was nowhere near Phil at the time? It didn’t add up.

  Lurleen seemed to be listening in on my thoughts. “I’d put my money on Harper as our murderer, if she weren’t so far from the scene of each crime.”

  Andy shook his head. “I don’t want to think one of our friends did this.”

  “I don’t either,” I said. “But these two deaths are about vengeance, past or present—that’s what I think. They’re vicious. The second one means the first was no accident. And that means one of the people we know is a killer whether we like that or not.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mason stuck his head inside Lurleen’s tent. “The Whitfield investigator said we can leave now. He’ll be in touch tomorrow to take your statements, unless you saw something he should know about today. I told him about what happened to you in the tunnel and about the torn hat.”

  Mason helped us carry boxes to my car. Danny remained behind with Phil, and the rest of us drove home.

  Hermione greeted us with wild enthusiasm. Her entire body wagged. She didn’t like being alone all day. Once she’d greeted us properly, she looked around for Lucie and Jason. I knew she missed them, but the best thing for them and for me was to let them spend another night with Mason’s mother.

  I couldn’t get the image of Ryan out of my mind. First the desperate Ryan and then the picture of him on the field with the gaping wound in his chest.

  Mason didn’t say anything except to offer me a glass of wine, which I accepted. He sat beside me but didn’t urge me to speak. Lurleen busied herself in the kitchen putting my things away.

  When Lurleen finally joined us, she broke the silence.

  “Chérie, tell us what you are thinking.” She took my hand. “Whenever I’m quiet for too long, you make me speak and tell you what’s on my mind.”

  I couldn’t remember a time when Lurleen had been quiet for too long. That wasn’t quite fair. I knew there were times when something triggered an unhappy thought, perhaps from her childhood, but she rarely let those feelings linger.

  “I do need to sort through what’s going on with my friends—if they even are my friends. Ryan was so sure Harper was having an affair with someone,” I said. “First it was Carl he suspected and then Phil.”

  “Poor guy. So miserable and now he’s dead.” Lurleen tossed her head. “He had every reason to suspect Harper. Look how she behaved at the party. She could drive a man to—” She caught herself and didn’t finish that thought. “If Danny hadn’t separated them, Ryan and Phil would have pummeled each other.”

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “If we wanted a person with a motive to kill Carl and frame Phil, Ryan would have been the one, don’t you think, chérie?”

  “Yes. Are you suggesting Ryan killed Carl and someone else killed Ryan?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what I’m suggesting exactly—just that Harper could have made Ryan crazy with jealousy.”

  Lurleen stood. “If we’re going to continue a serious conversation I need some food.”

  She went to the kitchen and returned with a plate of cheese, crackers and fruit. After she passed it around and offered to refill my wine glass, she settled on the chair opposite Mason and me.

  “I wouldn’t let Phil off quite so easily,” Mason said.

  Lurleen nodded. “Danny has his eye on him.”

  “If we’re running down the list, let’s go through them all,” I said. “What about Sally?

  She’s the one who had the torn hat. She could have been the one who pushed me and ran off. At the funeral service, she told me how fond she was of Carl—how he was a much nicer guy than people realized.”

  “You are giving her a perfect motive not to kill Carl,” Mason said.

  “But she could have wanted revenge for his killing if she believed Phil or Ryan was responsible.”

  “And she was standing near Phil,” Mason said. “Near enough to fire a live round and not be discovered.”

  Hermione heard all our talking and wandered in from the family room. She put her head in my lap, and after I stroked her head, she settled at my feet.

  “Sally went back and forth about Phil,” I said. “On the battlefield after Carl was killed, she said Phil was the most likely murderer. At the funeral she acted as if she might be interested in Phil romantically, now that he was getting a divorce. She asked if I still had feelings for him.”

  “And you told her what?” Mason asked.

  I looked at Mason and shook my head. “I told her the same thing I’ve told you at least one hundred times. I am not interested in Phil Brockton.”

  Mason narrowed his eyes and gave me a look I’d never seen before. “For a man you say you have no feelings for, you’re certainly at his beck and call.”

  I could feel my face growing hot, but Lurleen put a hand on my arm and changed the subject.

  “I’m not s
ure what you’re thinking, Ditie? Is she a suspect or isn’t she?”

  I took a few seconds to calm down. Mason and I needed to talk, but not with Lurleen in the room. “I don’t know about Sally. She always seems to fly below the radar. She looks so childlike, even now, that I don’t think anyone takes her seriously. I can’t tell where she fits.”

  “Let’s move on,” Lurleen said, “to your friend Andy.”

  I nodded. “I do like Andy, but he won’t tell me the whole story about what Carl did to him. Kathy suggested Carl broke up his marriage.”

  “I’ve heard the details,” Mason said.

  “Nous sommes tout oreilles,” Lurleen said.

  Mason gave her a blank look.

  “We’re all ears,” she told him.

  “Andy is convinced that in addition to stealing money from him, Carl was having an affair with his wife Jenna. They divorced three months later. A couple of powerful motives to kill a man.”

  “And Andy knew all about cannons.” I sighed. “I’ve always known him to be a gentle soul—I just can’t see him as a killer.”

  “Maybe you don’t know what jealousy and betrayal can do to a person,” Mason said. “Do you know who Carl worked for before Andy?”

  I shook my head.

  “Carl had a falling out with a doctor in upstate New York, also about money.”

  “As in embezzling funds?” I asked.

  “Never proven, apparently. Carl left quietly. His boss chose not to prosecute.”

  “I take it Carl was never censured by the Medical Board in New York.”

  “He wasn’t censured. His former boss kept the whole thing quiet.”

  “And did he give Carl a reference?” I asked.

  “Apparently he did. The boss and Carl kept in touch over the years.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Kathy Thompson found a black accounting notebook in Carl’s office, in an unlocked desk drawer. In it were initials, dates, payments. Payments were recorded on a monthly basis for a few months to the old boss. Then they stopped for several years and only recently resumed.”

  “That might well be the blackmail Kathy mentioned,” I said. “She told me someone was threatening Carl. She said it might be blackmail and then she denied that later.”