A Date With Death: Cozy Private Investigator Series (Flora Lively Mysteries Book 2)

by Joanne Phillips

  Which was possibly the worst thing of all.

  Chapter 14

  ‘Flora, can I talk to you outside for a moment?’ Jack’s smile had morphed into a mask of concern, his voice low and conspiratorial. He glanced around the room, then looked back at Flora. The others were staring at them, their expressions both alarmed and confused. Flora shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think so. I think we should discuss it right here.’

  ‘Okay.’ His posture seemed relaxed, but Flora was wary. She took another step back, her ankle grazing the side of Gabriella’s trunk. Celeste had edged closer to Flora, whether for support or to take a lunge for her blasted envelope, Flora couldn’t tell.

  ‘Well, I think it’s clear what’s going on here,’ Jack said. ‘You’re still worried about your boyfriend being implicated in Alberto’s murder so you’ve come up with this plan to muddy the waters.’ He looked at Celeste, his face a sneer. ‘You and your friend have a lot in common when it comes to tampering with evidence. But if you give me the recording right now I won’t press charges. Give it to me, Flora.’ He held out his hand again, this time taking a step in her direction.

  Flora clutched it to her chest and shook her head.

  ‘Just let her play it,’ Nick said. He’d elbowed past Vincenzo and Raquel to stand within striking distance of Jack, and if his body language was anything to go by, striking was a distinct possibility. ‘Then we’ll know, won’t we?’

  ‘This is a police matter,’ Jack said. His tone was firm, and his eyes told Nick to stay back. ‘No one will be listening to that recording here, today. For God’s sake, Flora, you’ve already destroyed the chance of us getting prints off that. And what are you even doing in here? Sidney was supposed to keep this room locked.’

  ‘It’s not Sidney’s fault. I made him give me the key.’ She looked at the device in her hands. ‘You’d only have found Gabriella’s prints, anyway. I’m sure you never touched it. And once we listen to this, it won’t matter, will it? It won’t matter about evidence. All the evidence you need is right here. Which is why you told Sidney to keep it locked away until you arrived. This device would never have seen the light of day – it would have been lost or destroyed as soon as you found it.’ She stopped, her attention caught by sound outside the room. She thought she heard a low voice, someone speaking to Sidney. She hoped it was Marshall. But what if he hadn’t got her message?

  She had no time to think about that now. Whether he had come or not, it was time to end this. Raquel was staring at the device in Flora’s hands, tears forming in the corners of her mascaraed eyes. Celeste had edged her way around the room to Flora’s side, and when Flora glanced her way, she saw her friend nod, just once. A nod of encouragement. Of support.

  She located the play button on the device again and rested her finger on it.

  ‘Don’t do it, Flora.’ Jack’s voice was hoarse now, his eyes imploring.

  ‘But you’ve left me no choice,’ she said. ‘You did this, not me. You killed Alberto, and then you killed Gabriella. And these people deserve to know the truth.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he shouted, whirling round to face the others. ‘She’s making all this up. She’s probably recorded something on there herself, twisting it around to sound like a murder. Why, her best friend is an actress, they probably know someone who could have faked it, could have –’

  Flora pressed the button. The recording was clear, as clear as if Alberto was standing in the windowless room with them. He said something in Spanish, then they heard the clinking sound of ice being thrown into glasses, liquid pouring. A creaking noise, perhaps somebody sitting. And then Jack’s voice.

  You’ve got it secured like we discussed? She shouldn’t keep on wearing it. Can’t you tell her?

  Alberto laughed, a jolly upbeat laugh that made Flora wince. No matter how lecherous he’d been, no matter his personal history, he hadn’t deserved to die. The director said something the recording didn’t quite pick up – it was muffled as though he was bending down – and then Alberto said, What are you doing with that? She bit her lip as Jack spoke again.

  Just stay back there, old man. Don’t come any closer.

  Jack, hey, my friend. Alberto’s voice was almost amused, his accent even more pronounced. Is the tiara you want? You take. Take it. Is insured, yes? I won’t say –

  Shut up. Don’t make another sound and I won’t hurt you.

  A banging now, and something unintelligible, and then Alberto, crying out.

  Hey, what you doing? No. No … no …

  ‘Detenerlo.’ Raquel’s hand rose up, pointing at Flora. Her fingers shook, and her face was streaked with tears. ‘Stop it, por favor.’ Vincenzo whispered something in her ear and she sagged against him. The recording continued to play.

  Silence. And then breathing, something being dragged. A door opening, footsteps. Silence again.

  Flora pressed another button and the playback stopped. Celeste slipped her arm through Flora’s and pulled her close. They looked up at Jack.

  He hadn’t moved, hadn’t flinched, for the entire duration of the replay. But something had changed. There was a hardening of his face, a tension in his shoulders. His eyes found Flora’s and he lifted his lips into a sneer.

  ‘How the hell did you work it out?’ The emphasis was on you, and Flora felt the word like a slap.

  ‘It was easy,’ she said, although this wasn’t true at all. ‘You told me everything I needed to know. You gave yourself away twice over.’

  ‘A lucky guess,’ he said. His gaze kept jumping to the door and back. His body had shifted, almost imperceptibly, to face it. ‘You didn’t know it was me on that recording. Not until you played it.’

  ‘True. But I was pretty sure it would be. I figured it out, Jack. You came to Alberto’s room that night, probably on the pretext of checking he was okay after the fight with Nick. Of course, it had been your plan to steal the tiara all along, which was why you told Alberto to keep it here in the house where there is no safe. Anyone else would have brought a safe in, or advised him to keep it in one of the locked rooms. Goodness knows there are plenty of them.’ She could see it now, her imagination playing it out for her like a film. Like a really bad film.

  ‘I guess you planned to kill him all along, because if it had been just a plain old robbery, CID might not have been involved. You needed to be in on the investigation so you could control it completely. But when Eduardo threatened Alberto, you saw your chance to set it up to look like a crime of passion, not a robbery gone wrong.’ She glanced at Eduardo, who looked back at her blankly. ‘It was easy enough for you to get hold of his sword after filming, to sneak upstairs with it. You knew Raquel was with Vincenzo downstairs, and for once she wasn’t wearing the tiara. But it wasn’t enough to incriminate Eduardo, was it? You had to have a back-up plan.’ She moved her head from side to side. ‘Still the same old Jack. Always had to over-prepare. But you picked on the wrong person this time, didn’t you? You found Marshall’s baseball cap in Alberto’s room, and saw your chance, slipping it under his body so you could discover it there later with plenty of witnesses. And then you sent the note, supposedly from me, telling Marshall to meet me in here. You left the scabbard out, figuring he would recognise what it was straight away, banking on normal human curiosity to do your work for you. And then you sent one of your men in here to catch him red-handed. It was clever, really clever. But it was the note that gave you away in the end, Jack. Just in case you were wondering.’

  Jack took a step to the side, keeping his eyes on Flora. ‘You’ve got no evidence that I sent it. If you’re hoping for a confession you’re out of luck, Miss Detective. No court is going to convict me based on that alone.’ He pointed to the device in Flora’s hands, but his expression was desperate, almost lustful. She realised with a jolt that if the two of them were in this room alone, he would kill her to get his hands on the recording. She watched him, her eyes wary.

  ‘You said it was written on a serviette,
Jack. Nobody knew that except Sidney and me. As soon as Sidney told you that the note had been destroyed, you lost interest – he never got the chance to describe it to you. He certainly never told you that it had been written on a serviette. No one could have known that. Except the killer.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Sidney said. Vincenzo and Nick moved out of the way to allow the butler to look into the room. ‘What she’s saying is true.’ He threw Jack a disgusted glance, then stepped back again.

  Behind him, Flora saw Marshall, and her heart jumped just a little. He was back and he was safe. He also looked furious, but that was okay. Even if he was furious with her, that was still okay. Gathering her strength, she turned back to Jack, pulling away from Celeste as she began to speak again.

  ‘Of course, Celeste helped you, albeit unwittingly, by messing up the room and knocking stuff over. She said she did it because she wanted to protect Eduardo. As soon as she saw the sword she thought he’d killed Alberto to protect her.’

  ‘You think it was me? How you think that?’ Eduardo turned to Celeste, outraged. ‘What kind of girlfriend you?’ He changed to Spanish, but then quickly shut up, silenced by a growl from Nick.

  Celeste had stiffened, but she said nothing, and Flora didn’t bother to look her way.

  ‘I’d had my doubts about it from the start,’ Flora said. ‘There were no footprints in the flowerbeds, but the balcony door was open. You didn’t seem bothered about that discrepancy, which I thought was odd for someone who is usually so meticulous. You were so quick to arrest Marshall, when it should have been clear the evidence against him was thin at best. But I trusted you, we all trusted you. Which is exactly what you were banking on, wasn’t it?

  ‘It all slotted together when Eduardo told me that honda was also a Spanish word for sling. You translated it as deep, but I’m pretty sure as soon as I told you what Gabriella had said to me, you figured it out at once. She’d been blackmailing you, hadn’t she? You didn’t know she had planted a recording device in Alberto’s room, had no idea that every word you said to him that night was being captured digitally. That’s what she went in to retrieve the night of the murder, and when she came to you and played it, threatened to expose you if you didn’t give her a share of the money, you decided to kill her too.’

  This last part was guesswork, but Flora’s suspicions were confirmed by the flush creeping up Jack’s neck.

  ‘This is your case?’ Jack said, laughing. ‘Flowerbeds, serviettes, doctored recordings? Just as well you’re not a real detective. You haven’t got a clue.’

  It was Flora’s turn to shrug now. ‘We’ll let the courts decide. But at least you won’t be able to manipulate any more evidence. You should have been taken off this investigation, and if you had any real ethics you would have walked away. That was the only reason you didn’t come in here last night and search for the sling. You had to be seen to be doing it properly, getting a warrant, ticking the right boxes. But it must have been driving you insane, having to wait. Knowing that someone else could find the recording and discover the truth.’ She glanced down at it, such an innocent looking object. ‘You tried to put me off the scent, giving me the wrong translation. But when I remembered that you yourself had been the one to teach Gabriella the English word for sling, I realised what you’d done. You were clever, Jack. But you weren’t clever enough.’

  Suddenly, Jack lunged for the recording. Flora wasn’t quick enough – his fingers were strong and insistent, and he forced the device out of her hands. She cried out, clawing at his back as he turned away. He kicked out, catching her in the stomach, shoving her off her feet. Flora staggered and fell on top of the trunk. A woman’s voice screamed. Jack ran towards the door.

  ‘Stop him,’ someone shouted. It was Nick, shouldering forward, running at the detective like a prize bull. Jack was strong, but he was no match for Nick and Vincenzo together, who grappled him to the ground, hands and fists flying. Nick grabbed the recording device and stood up, pulling Jack with him, pinning the detective’s arms behind his back. Eduardo stepped forward to block any further attempts to escape, his lips curled back in a snarl.

  ‘The police are on their way,’ Marshall said to Flora as he helped her to her feet. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just winded.’ She looked at him, her eyes searching. Was he angry with her? Probably. He had every right to be. ‘It just came to me, Marshall,’ she said. ‘I didn’t plan to do it like this, with a room full of witnesses. I didn’t know if I was even right until I found the sling.’

  ‘Just as well you did have witnesses,’ Sidney said. ‘Goodness knows what would have happened otherwise.’ He handed her a glass of water, ever the thoughtful butler. Flora smiled gratefully and took a long sip.

  ‘Oh, I knew you wouldn’t let that key out of your sight for long. I was banking on you being around to save the day.’

  Sidney nodded, then squared his shoulders and gave a little bow. ‘Well, I was fairly handy in my time. Wait until my wife hears about this.’

  Footsteps in the hall announced the arrival of the police – five or six uniformed officers who jogged into the room and calmly looked around. One placed a set of handcuffs on a protesting Jack, not making eye contact or responding to a word he said.

  ‘I called them,’ Marshall said. ‘Just after I got back. They heard part of the recording through my mobile. I figured he’d try and make a run for it any minute, thought we’d need back-up.’

  ‘Back-up!’ Flora laughed, then winced in pain, her hand flying to her stomach. ‘You sound like you’re in a Hollywood blockbuster.’

  ‘Pot and bucket!’ Marshall said.

  ‘Kettle. How many English phrases are you going to murder before you get one right?’

  ‘We need to get you checked out by a doctor, Flora. You’re in pain.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Flora crossed the room and stood in front of Nick. ‘You need to give it to them now,’ she said. ‘They might let you have it back when they’ve finished with it, but whatever’s on there doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?’

  He looked at her, then looked down at the device in his hand. ‘How did you know?’ he said.

  ‘That you were the one who asked Gabriella to plant it in Alberto’s room?’ She shrugged. ‘I saw her doing it, you know. On our first day here. I saw her creeping out, and she saw me, and then every time she saw me after that she acted weird. Scared. I guessed she was up to something. When I put it together about the sling I figured she must have hidden something there that would reveal the killer. I didn’t know what it was going to be until I pulled it out, but I had an idea it might be a recording device. As soon as I saw it, I knew she’d put it there for you. What was it, Nick? You wanted to get the dirt on Alberto, give you the ammunition you needed to force him out of Rojo Productions?’

  He nodded, his head dipped low. ‘Something like that. And it got her killed. Why didn’t she come to me, tell me about the tape? Why did she have to be so greedy?’

  ‘Did you know about her background? That she had a criminal record?’

  He nodded. ‘I knew her in Spain. She is my sister’s friend’s cousin. They’ll never forgive me for using her like this. I still haven’t broken the news of her death.’

  One of the policemen stepped forward and relieved Nick of the device. He dropped it into an evidence bag, then sealed it shut. Flora looked around for Jack, but he was gone.

  ‘Wait,’ she called, and she ran towards the hall. After the gloomy interior of the props room, the brightly lit corridor made her squint. She shielded her eyes. There was Jack, flanked by three officers, heading into the main hall. She caught up with them at the top of the steps that led down to the driveway.

  ‘Wait,’ she said again. ‘I need to ask him a question.’

  Jack turned and regarded her coolly. ‘If it’s an apology you’re after you can go to hell. I don’t need to justify myself to you.’

  Flora met his level gaze. ‘You don’t need to justify
yourself, Jack. I know why you did it – for the money, pure and simple. I thought you were different, better than this. But greed?’ She shook her head. ‘You’ve always been predictable. It was one of the reasons I was never attracted to you. But only one of them.’

  ‘Whatever.’ The coldness in his eyes was unchecked now, and she wondered whether it had been there all the time. Maybe she’d been too impressed by him, by his position and authority, to notice.

  She said, ‘I want to know if it was you that day on Stiperstones. Were you just trying to scare me, or did you intend to do me harm?’

  ‘Do you harm?’ he mimicked. ‘Who do you think you are, Miss Marple? Get real, Flora. Stop living in the past. Those ridiculous clothes and quaint old sayings – this is the twenty-first century, you know.’

  His escort began to walk him down the steps. Jack didn’t put up any resistance. He kept his neck craned back, his eyes on Flora. She stayed where she was, frozen to the top step.

  ‘Well, was it?’ she called when they reached the first of the three police cars that were parked zigzag fashion on the drive. ‘Was it you who followed me?’

  Jack shrugged, his handcuffed wrists moving up and down his lower back. ‘No idea what you’re talking about. But if you say I was there, I’ll take that. Whatever you say, Miss Detective.’ He grinned at her then, the same ready smile she’d become accustomed to. But this time, it only made her shiver.

  Chapter 15

  When Marshall found her she was on the lawn, crouched near the spot where they had seen Alberto with Celeste that first day. Five days ago. Such a short amount of time. Flora stroked the spiky grass, immersed in her thoughts. The sun had beaten the rain away, and the earth smelled like a memory of summer. She knew the smell of heat and soil and summer rain would always remind her of Hanley Manor. She also wished that wasn’t the case.