Until Death

by Alicia Rasley

  Even though Wanda was technically no longer my enemy, I wasn’t about to let her off the hook. “She was the prime suspect. You were wrong to dismiss that.”

  “I was right to say she didn’t do it, because . . . she didn’t.”

  “Men are always so obsessed with being right. Besides, you were wrong about the big question. Someone did murder Don. That’s pretty clear.”

  “Not as clear as you’re making it. But I’m willing to accept that it’s a possibility.”

  “Big of you,” I muttered, secretly pleased. Vindication came hard-won, but it was worth it.

  “And so I’m worried about this investigation of yours. You didn’t have anything to fear when you were going after Wanda. But now, if there’s a murderer out there, and he finds out you’re trying to pin it on him . . . have you thought about that?”

  “Of course. I’m not nearly as stupid as you seem to think.”

  “Not stupid. Impulsive.”

  “Me? Never. My motto might as well be, You can never be too careful. And I’m being careful. I’m not letting anyone know that I even think it’s murder.”

  “Except for me. And now Wanda.”

  “She doesn’t care,” I said bitterly. “She thinks it was murder, but she doesn’t care.”

  “Who else knows? Bowie? That old partner of Don’s?”

  “No one else.” I glanced at him suspiciously. “Have you told anyone?”

  “Why would I tell anyone something I don’t believe?”

  “Oh, yeah, you believed instead in my desperate displacement of guilt over wanting to murder him myself.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  I wished I’d thought to record him a week ago. Then I could play it back to him and say, Ha! Admit you were wrong! But that would be childish. I didn’t need him to admit that. His presence here, his concern for my safety, were proof that he knew the truth. “I was right, wasn’t I? Admit it.” Okay, so I’m not such a mature person after all.

  “I said I am willing to entertain the possibility.”

  “Why? I mean, here you were last week, so sure it was suicide.”

  “I wasn’t sure. That was a possibility. But you’re right. If he was driven to the depths of despair by Wanda’s conduct, he would have waited till he got a will disinheriting her. And—” he shrugged. “There was none of that anti-depressant in his system.”

  “So you’re not worried about that prescription causing suicide anymore.”

  He inclined his head. “And I never did think it could have been an accident. So . . .”

  “So, not an accident. Not suicide. Just one possibility left.”

  “But if you’re right, and I’m not saying you are, you have to take greater care.”

  It wasn’t actually a big avowal of support. But it was something. Concern? Protectiveness? I wasn’t sure I liked that. Okay. I did kind of like it. For just a second. Then I remembered that I didn’t need a man to protect me. “Like what? I have been very discreet.”

  “Have you seen this?” From his pocket, he pulled a scrap of newspaper. If he wasn’t such a quiet, understated fellow, I’d say he handed it over with a flourish. “Late edition.”

  I saw the headline first—Netware Founder Denies Theft of Farm—and only then the picture, taken right after the hearing, from the courthouse steps. Olen Murdoch was in the foreground, his face fuzzy, his eyes flat, and behind him, a dozen or more feet away, was Will leaning into the open window of my car. Fortunately, my own mother wouldn’t recognize me, as only my forehead and dark hair showed above Will’s shoulder. And the car was the usual soccer-mom van. There were a couple dozen others just like it in town. I stuffed the paper into my pocket, planning to read poor Will’s statement later. “No one will recognize me from that.”

  “Murdoch doesn’t know you?”

  “Never met him. I remember Don meeting with a fertilizer inventor, and that had to be Murdoch. But I didn’t go to the meeting. I thought it was another of Don’s momentary brainstorms.”

  “More than just momentary.” He glanced at me. “So Murdoch won’t know who you are?”

  “I don’t imagine so. And even if he does, he’s going to learn only that I’m doing business with Will, moving that farmhouse. Or I will be, as soon as the injunction is lifted.”

  Mike rose and walked to the window I’d had set in the brick wall. He was shaking his head as he looked out at the river. From behind, I could see a dark curl almost gripping the back of his polo shirt. “You could need backup. It’s not a job I’d volunteer for, but you’ve drafted me, so I’m signing on. Officially. So when you’re going out to follow up some lead, doing whatever Sherlock would do, you let me know. I’ll come along if I can.”

  For some reason, this edict didn’t irritate me as it had when it involved Wanda. Maybe I was getting used to Mike’s interference. “This sounds like a major intrusion on your life.”

  “Probably. But since I’ve been cutting back on the practice all summer, I’ve got more time. And I won’t feel so responsible when I hear you’ve been buried in a shallow grave.”

  Okay, so he was coming across like John Wayne, warning the lil’ schoolmarm about the snakes in the grass outside the schoolhouse. But a warm feeling spread through me even as my feminist hackles rose. I didn’t need protection from a man. In fact, the men who should have by rights protected me—the police and Don—had left me in the lurch. I’d learned that only I could be counted on to take care of myself. But still, it felt good. Primally good.

  Not, I told myself, because he was a man and some biological imperative insisted I needed him. Just because it felt good to have a partner in this. I wasn’t all alone on my own anymore.

  “I’ll try and keep you informed.”

  “Then let’s get out of here so your business partner doesn’t inadvertently overhear something.” He was a shrink. He knew no one ever inadvertently eavesdrops, but I appreciated his tact.

  As if on cue, there was a sharp rap on the door, and Barb came in, bearing down on us like a waitress determined to earn a good tip. Only instead of a fresh pot of coffee, she was holding a pink message pad. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, but you got a call. Will Bowie. He said, and I quote, that he needs to talk to you about the lawsuit, and would you please—” she turned the message pad around so we could see “—I underlined that because he really emphasized it, see. Would you please meet him for dinner at Gillie’s tonight.”

  “She can’t,” Mike said. “She’s already got plans. Now. Early dinner with me.”

  I could feel the vibes, the protection vibes, the bodyguard vibes, emanating from him. I was woman enough to feel both annoyed and gratified. I reminded myself that I didn’t need protection, but it was hard to turn down when it was freely offered, especially after a year where I couldn’t even get a man to open doors for me, much less lay down his life to save me.

  Barb didn’t know any of this. All she knew was that two men—eligible, rich men—wanted to take me out to dinner. She was a good enough friend that envy quickly gave way to enjoyment. “You two get going. Somewhere in the neighborhood? Like the River Garden? And I’ll call this Will and tell him you’ll call him tomorrow.”

  Gratefully, I gave into her management, which meant I wouldn’t have to say no again to Will, at least not directly. “Yeah. Tell Will I’ll call him in the morning.”

  “Let’s go,” Mike said, taking my arm in a firm grip. I had time only to grab my purse, all the while giddy with the unprecedented experience of a man impatient to be alone with me.

  Fortunately, we reached the restaurant before I could examine my reaction. Caleb’s River Garden was a brick terrace set over the water and surrounded by sugar maple trees. It was, perhaps, too romantic a place to waste on this sort of liaison, but I filed it away for further reference. Once
we were seated under the awning and the waitress took our orders, Mike looked back downriver towards the old railroad tracks. “I like your office.”

  “We had to do some rehabbing, especially the wiring.” I recalled that his building would shortly become rubble under an exit ramp. “Have you found new office space yet?”

  “No. I’m going to shut down my practice.”

  Whew. “Umm, office space isn’t that tight. Don’t do anything drastic.”

  “I’m not doing anything drastic. Just quitting private practice.”

  Nothing drastic. Boy. I felt a vicarious bungee-jump lurch in my stomach. “But you’re throwing away, what, two decades of your life.”

  “I’m not throwing it away,” he said mildly. “I’m just changing it.” After a moment, as if to comfort me, he added, “I intend to continue with the emergency medicine residency.”

  That made me feel better. “A big pay cut, I bet.”

  “I can afford it.”

  “Boy, Barb would put that on her list of the top ten most intriguing things a man can say.”

  He smiled, and I was about to regale him with the other nine items on Barb’s list when I heard behind me a sharp, “Meggie.”

  It was Will, threading his way through the tables. Barb must have given into mischief and told him where we were dining—the restaurant, I recalled, she had recommended. She probably thought that it would inflame Will’s passions or something. Now, one look at Will’s face and I realized I was in for a spot of trouble.

  Mike stood up, not so much out of good manners as out of the primal masculine imperative to protect his turf. It was a bit thrilling, even though I thought one of them—Mike—didn’t mean anything by it. And Will only cared because he found it intriguing that I kept avoiding his invitations. If I’d go out with him, I’d last about as long as his average supermodel.

  “Will,” I said gaily. “What a coincidence,”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Mike didn’t let me answer. “We’re having dinner, and you’re interrupting us.”

  This was almost too much. Too much fun, that is. I’d never had two men fighting over me before. I glanced around at the other diners, who had abandoned their conversations to watch us, and I appreciated how well Mike played the part of the possessive date.

  I put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. Will, look. I’ll meet you in the bar when we’re done.”

  With a surly sort of affirmative, he headed across the terrace to the door to the bar, shooting one last glance back at us. Only then did Mike retake his seat, but he was all business now. “Explain this land deal.”

  I took a deep breath. I’d put most of it together in the last week from the court filings and old Ross-Munssen records, but it still felt like a betrayal to spell it out. This was Mike Warren, I reminded myself. Our marriage counselor. He didn’t have any illusions about Don’s integrity. “I think Don decided long ago he wanted the farm for Ross-Munssen. But Brad and I . . . well, we just didn’t see the point. There wasn’t much buildable land, and Murdoch didn’t want to sell. So Don dropped the idea, at least until Brad and I were out of the decision-loop.”

  “By then, Murdoch was ready to sell? He didn’t know it would be worth a lot more later?”

  I shook my head. “No, he didn’t want to sell. He rented out some acreage to eke out a meager living. And he farmed a little. The rest of the time, he was working on that fertilizer invention. See, even back when Don first offered for the land, Murdoch was developing some new clean fertilizer. No runoff into the river. When Murdoch talks about his dream, I think that’s what he means—not the farm, but this fertilizer. He thought he could revolutionize the industry.”

  “So where’s the fraud come in?”

  “Alleged fraud.” But I knew better. “Maybe Don made a big show of being interested and invested in Murdoch Industries.” A high-falutin’ name for what was probably a lab in an old barn. “Or he lent Murdoch money and took the farm as collateral on the note. I think he planned to leverage his investment into the land.” Reluctantly, I explained, “He must have done a good snow job, because if Murdoch had brought in an attorney, that loan agreement never would have gotten by. I’m thinking Don wrote the note so it could be called at any time. He even had Murdoch sign over the deed.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “Yeah. It’s called a deed in escrow. They made a loan agreement, and the deed was held in escrow. And I think, when Don knew Murdoch had spent all the money, Don called the note.”

  “And Murdoch couldn’t pay it. So Don seized the collateral,” Mike concluded.

  A breeze drifted up from the river, and I shivered. “The farm had to be security, see, because otherwise Don wouldn’t have gotten it so cheaply. He had to get it at the right price and time, just before the land was ruled out of the floodway, and the price skyrocketed.”

  “If the land was security, what difference would it make how much it was worth?”

  “Murdoch could have wangled a quick mortgage on the farm if it was worth more than the note. But the loan must have been for a lot more, so no bank would give him enough to pay it off. And with that kind of deed, he wouldn’t have had to go through a court to get the collateral. He just had to record the deed. Don must have timed this all for just a month before the price would go up.”

  “But how would he know about the flood plain changes?”

  “Well, he knew what the last flood was like. It was a good guess.”

  “A gamble, though. He had to put up a lot of cash for this scheme to work. If he’d been wrong, he’d be stuck with a lot of overpriced bottom land.”

  I pushed my plate away. “I just can’t believe Don did this. He had to lie to Murdoch. It’s so . . . dishonorable. He cheated an old man.”

  “It’s not the Don you knew.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, the Don I knew lied to me for most of a year. Lied to you, too.”

  “Well, that comes with the job. It wasn’t as if he fooled me.”

  “He did fool me. I was like Murdoch. I believed what I wanted to believe.” With an effort, I shook off the shame. “But he’d always stayed on the right side of the line in business, before this.”

  “Why did Don want this deal so much he would cheat for it?”

  I sighed. “Maybe he wanted a big score to prove he could make it without Brad and me. And trophy wives are expensive, you know. He was buying that big house in the Heights, and they each bought a Mercedes.” I spared a bitter thought about the used minivan I’d driven for the last five years, then let it go. I didn’t even like the Mercedes. “Amazing as it is, I think he needed the money.”

  “And didn’t live to enjoy it.”

  The irony of it struck me. “It’s like one of those Greek tragedies, isn’t it? He thought the end justified the means, but that’s what caused his downfall.”

  “If you’re correct—” Mike broke off as the waitress came by to check on us “—you shouldn’t call attention to what you’re doing. And that’s why,” he jerked his head towards the bar, “that guy could be dangerous for you. He’s getting sued too and wants vindication. And with the two of them butting heads, where does that leave you?”

  “All I want is something so the insurance company can’t say that Don committed suicide. Maybe if Will holds out, and the discovery requests force Murdoch to make some admissions . . .”

  “Or maybe it’ll just make it seem like Don killed himself to escape the trouble.” He turned to take the check from the waitress and, ignoring my protests, paid with a credit card.

  “I’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Meggie . . .” He gripped my hand. “I’m serious. If Murdoch’s on some vindication crusade, and you get in his way, he’ll assume you, too, are the enemy and can be righteously elimin
ated.”

  I wanted to scoff, but I couldn’t find the strength. “I’ll be cautious. As I always am.”

  “Right.” He made a quick note on the credit card receipt and stuck it in his pocket. “By the way, your friend called my daughter.”

  “My friend? Will?”

  “No. Munssen.” He said the name as if he didn’t like it at all. “He mentioned the symphony internship. And going out with him. In the same paragraph.”

  Oh, great. Another midlife man chasing nubility. Brad though? “What did she do?”

  “Got off the phone and called her dad.”

  To buy time, I drank off the last watery inch of my drink. “It’s great that she felt she could call you about this. I mean, that shows she trusts you to do the right thing. I wouldn’t have called my dad, because I’d be worried he’d, well, take the matter into his own hands.”

  “That’s the difference between you and Sarah. She wanted me to take the matter into my own hands. Just in case her mention of sexual harassment lawsuits didn’t work.”

  The idea of Brad committing anything resembling sexual harassment was difficult for me to accept. He was too urbane, not to mention discreet and refined. But I’d given up trying to make any sense of that old biological imperative. “So what did you do?”

  “I warned him off. I thought you’d better know, in case I have to break both his arms.”

  I closed my eyes and envisioned a world with no men. No wars, no highway drag races, no Vin Diesel action flicks. Not much sex either, but then we women could eat all the chocolate we wanted, and that would help a lot. “You know,” I said, opening my eyes, “maybe we should start a mutual restraint society. If I have to call you whenever I’m going to do something rash, maybe you should call me whenever you decide to do the Godfather routine, okay?” I rose, not waiting for his inevitable explanation of why I had to be reined in and he, the totally rational one, could be trusted on his own. “I’ll just see what Will is planning.”

  “I’ll wait for you outside. See you to your car.”

  I made some annoyed sound as I walked to the bar, but couldn’t find it in me to mount a protest. If he wanted to play the knight-errant for me, well, I guessed I couldn’t stop him.