A Penny for Your Thoughts

by Mindy Starns Clark

It almost worked, too. But the longer I floated there trying to relax, the more my mind kept racing back to Alan Bennet, to the moment our eyes met at the airport. The eyes of a killer.

  Or were they?

  Something about it was bothering me, something about the way that this entire thing tied together. Had Alan Bennet killed Wendell Smythe? For the last few days, I had felt pretty sure that he had. But now, in spite of all that had happened, for some reason I was suddenly doubtful. It was almost as if things had tied together too neatly, too simply, and that bothered me. I just didn’t know what to think anymore.

  I sat up in the water and swam slowly, going back over the day’s events in my mind. I had watched while Alan robbed the company and had seen him arrested and then shot at the airport. I knew he had conned two different women into giving him what he needed and tricked one very unsavory man into trusting him to come through in the end. Even poor Carlos had been caught up in the man’s lies, risking his own life to prevent Alan’s escape.

  Poor Carlos. I thought of the two of us in the tower, of the brave way he had headed down those dark stairs to the crowd waiting below. How odd that this whole thing began—and ended—with me heading down a flight of stairs.

  The stairs.

  I stopped swimming and stood up in the water. The stairs! Of course! Carlos had run down the stairs of the airport tower ahead of me. He had been going fast, holding onto the rail, and I had shined the light down through the center of the stairwell, so that he could see as he went. I closed my eyes now, trying to picture the stairs in the office building where Wendell Smythe had been killed. The stairs there also ran clockwise as they went down. I remembered my pursuit of the person running down those stairs ahead of me on the day of Wendell’s murder. I remembered hearing the sounds of running feet below me, but when I looked down the center of the stairwell, I had seen nothing.

  The person I was chasing had been left-handed, I realized! He—or she—had been running down the left side of the stairs, holding onto the left rail. I grew angry at myself for not thinking of this before. I thought back to the coroner’s report. Wendell had been injected into the left upper arm, the angle of the needle posterior to anterior. Just the way a left-handed person would do it.

  I felt sure Alan Bennet was right-handed. Thinking back to the day we met, I remembered that was the hand he used to carry my printer as he walked me to Wendell’s office.

  I thought of all the suspects, wondering what was the quickest way to find out who was left-handed and who was right-handed. I closed my eyes, picturing them each in turn, trying to think of some action I had seen them perform and which hand they had been using. All that would come to my mind was Nick, the day I met him, carefully making his pecan tarts.

  Nick was left-handed.

  “It was Nick,” I whispered to myself urgently.

  Then I heard an odd sound, like a splash. I opened my eyes and spun around, stunned to see Nick sitting on the edge of the pool. He had taken off his shoes and socks and was resting his feet in the water.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” he said in his deep male voice.

  I swallowed hard, my mind racing, my heart pounding.

  “W-what?” I managed to gasp.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” he repeated calmly. “Wendell used to say that sometimes when he wondered what I was thinking.”

  He looked at me, his eyes too dark to read.

  “I wonder now what you are thinking,” he said softly.

  I took a step back in the water, trying not to let fear show in my face.

  “Why are you here?” I rasped. “I thought you went to the hospital.”

  He shook his head.

  “My sister wanted to talk with Mrs. Smythe. I told her to drive. I decided to stay here, with you.”

  “I see.”

  I glanced around, trying to think how I could escape. A quick swim to the deep end, climb out, and run across the yard? He would surely catch me. I looked wildly up at the house, knowing we were too alone, too isolated, for anyone to hear me if I screamed. I thought about Carlos in the hospital having the cut on his leg sewn up. It couldn’t take forever. Surely, they would all be home soon.

  “I wondered what your plans are now,” he said, holding out one foot and tapping it against the water. Ripples rolled out on the surface and rolled all the way to me until they splashed against my stomach and disappeared.

  “I’m leaving in the morning,” I said lightly, taking another step back. “Now that the killer’s been caught, there’s no reason for me to stick around.”

  I could hear my own voice as I spoke, knowing it sounded as fake as it possibly could. What was wrong with me? I was an investigator; I regularly bent the truth for a living. Why now did this one lie sound so pathetic? Had he heard what I said? Did he know what I was really thinking?

  He just shook his head, clicking his tongue.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” he repeated. “Or not. Because I already know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Alan Bennet didn’t kill Wendell after all.”

  My mind raced as I tried to fit other pieces of this puzzle together. I thought about Nick’s alibi, about the fact that he had been shopping in Philadelphia with Marion at the time that Wendell was killed. I never had gotten around to asking her to clarify that, nor had I inquired as to whether Nick had been with her the entire time.

  “Let us not pretend any more, Callie. I just heard you say, ‘It was Nick.’ You think it was me.”

  “Why, Nick?” I asked sinking down into the water. “Why kill a man who never hurt anyone, who did so much good in the world, for so many people?”

  “Wendell Smythe was a good man,” Nick replied, ignoring my question. He reached one hand out to the water and scooped up a handful and splashed it onto his face. The water trickled down across his broad cheeks, moistening his beard, leaving a dark wet spot on the front of his shirt.

  “I’ve already told the police,” I said. “They know Alan didn’t do it. They know he’s not the one who killed Mr. Smythe.”

  “You didn’t tell the police yet,” Nick said simply, shaking his head. “You just now figured it out yourself.”

  I started to speak, but he held up one hand to stop me.

  “I was afraid you would figure it out, sooner or later,” he said. “So now the question that remains is, what are we going to do about it?”

  He stood and took a step forward into the water, the legs of his pants becoming wet. He took another step forward, and the water was now up to his hips. I hesitated, calculating just where I could go if I managed to make it out of the pool. Nick was big, yes, but sometimes big meant slow. Perhaps I could outrun him. Perhaps I could make it into the house, lock the door, and call the police before he could get inside.

  “Why could you not just leave it alone?” he asked sadly. “Alan Bennet has been arrested. If he lives, he will go to trial. He will pay for his crimes.”

  “He’ll pay for his crimes, alright,” I said. “But should he have to pay for someone else’s as well?”

  Our eyes met. I saw Nick poised to jump, and I chose that moment to spring backward, diving into deeper water. Heart pumping, I swam as fast as I could through the black water to the other end of the pool. Reaching the cement side, I grabbed hold and hoisted myself out. I was almost up when I felt a hand at my ankle, gripping, pulling, yanking me.

  In one motion, I landed hard on the side of the pool and fell helplessly under the water. Then his hand was around my neck. I fought, twisting fiercely, but he was just too big, too strong. He pulled me up out of the water, his arm wrapped around my neck, my back pressed tightly against his body.

  “Please,” he whispered, his lips at my ear as I gasped for breath. With his other hand, he grabbed my arms and pinned them to my body. “I do not want to hurt you. I just want you to promise you will not tell.”

  Was he insane? Did I have any hope at all? I thought about us there in the deep water. He was fully dressed, the
water in his clothes weighing him down, his legs kicking furiously beneath me. After a while he would begin to get tired. He would lose strength, and then I could get away.

  “I won’t tell,” I whispered. “I promise.”

  I thought of Angelina, the night I overheard her in the pantry with Alan. Nick will kill me if he finds us, she had said. Until now, I had thought it was just a figure of speech.

  He changed his grip on me and began dragging me toward the shallow end. He was crying now, his sobs echoing across the top of the water. I wanted to understand why. I just wanted to know what made him do it.

  He dragged me all the way to the steps, and then he pulled me against him again, his arm tighter around my neck. I could barely breath. I closed my eyes, willing my heart to slow down, forcing myself to think clearly.

  “It’ll be our secret, Nick,” I rasped. “Yours and mine.”

  “How can I be sure?” he asked, his breathing heavy, his grip strong. He was rocking us back and forth, still crying. “You should have left it alone.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I felt a wave of dizziness come over me and knew it was the lack of oxygen. I had to breathe. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Nick, stop!”

  The voice of Marion Smythe rang out across the water. She stood at the edge of the pool, watching in horror as Nick’s arm pressed more tightly against my throat.

  He was startled enough by her appearance that he loosened his grip. I chose that moment to wrench myself away, sprinting from the pool. Feeling him lunge after me, I grabbed for the only thing I could reach—a wrought iron footstool beside the pool—which I lifted and swung around in an arc, catching him sharply on the side of his head.

  He went down in a heap, blood spurting from the gash on his head. He was out cold, and for a moment, I was afraid I had killed him.

  “No!” Marion yelled, seemingly frozen in place. I knelt down and felt for his pulse, which was strong and regular.

  “The towel!” I said. “Hand me that towel!”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Marion did as I said. She tossed it to me, and I wadded it up and pressed it against the cut on his head. I held it there firmly, trying to catch my breath, watching Nick for signs of consciousness.

  “Call the police,” I barked to Marion, but she remained frozen where she was.

  “You have to call,” I said, looking at her. “Now, Marion. Nick’s the murderer. He killed your husband.”

  She shook her head, whispering softly to herself.

  “No,” she said.

  “Call them, Marion,” I said. “Then bring me some rope. We’ll tie him up while he’s still unconscious.”

  “No.”

  “Marion!” I yelled. She seemed to snap back to attention, looking at me, pain in her eyes. “You have to call the police! But get me some rope first.”

  “Callie,” Marion said softly, shaking her head. “Nick didn’t kill my husband.”

  “Yes, he did. And just now he nearly killed me.”

  “He was only protecting me. He didn’t kill Wendell.”

  “How do you know that?” I demanded.

  “Because I did it,” Marion said. “I killed my husband.”

  Fifty-Two

  I sat in the drawing room with the door tightly closed as Angelina tended to Nick on the couch. He had regained consciousness, and the cut on his head had finally stopped bleeding. I knew he would need to see a doctor soon to get stitches and check for a concussion. For now, he was subdued, his eyes closed, his sister weeping softly as she cleaned the blood from his face and beard.

  Marion stood in front of me, holding out the piece of paper that she had sworn would explain it all. I took it from her, noting the wildly shaking fingers and the pale, pale skin of her face.

  What she handed me was a suicide note written by Wendell. He had penned it from the hospital bed on Sunday night, the night before he was killed.

  My dear family, I write this with a heavy heart, my sorrow so deep I can scarcely find the words to say what I must say. This is my final goodbye, my suicide anthem. I only pray that one day you will all find it in your hearts to forgive me.

  I offer no justification for what I am doing, only the hope that you won’t hate me for my actions. Unlike all of you, I witnessed my own mother’s demise this way. In my nightmares, I still hear her screams of pain. I cannot and will not let that happen to me. I am afraid of the suffering that begins tomorrow and will only end in death anyway.

  My only regret is all of this business with the company and my disappointment with those responsible. I will make things right, and then I will do what I have to do. But once I’m gone, let this weigh on you, Alan, for the rest of your life: I thought you were a trusted friend and employee, but you broke this dying old man’s heart.

  As for you, Marion, I can only ask for your forgiveness for this, the coward’s way out. Surely once the pain of my death has receded, you will understand that it was for the best. You have given me a loving home and family and more wonderful years together than any man has the right to ask for. I love you with all of my heart and always will. Better I die now and leave you with memories of me intact and whole.

  Derek, Judith, Sidra, Carlos—I love you. To everyone, I say, God bless you all. You have loved and cared for me for many years, and if the Lord can forgive me for this one final, desperate act, I await that day that we are all joined together again in heaven.

  With love and deep affection,

  Wendell (Dad and Grandpa)

  I looked up, tears filling my eyes. Wendell had been planning to kill himself. He sat in that hospital bed awaiting his operation, knowing it wasn’t going to happen, knowing he would kill himself first, as soon as he finished setting things right in his company.

  “Nick went to see Wendell Sunday evening after the rest of us had left the hospital,” Marion said. “When he got there, Wendell gave him this note in a sealed envelope and told him he was to hang onto it until the operation and then give it to me.”

  “I didn’t wait,” Nick interjected softly from the couch. “He was so depressed; I was worried.”

  “I was worried, too,” Marion added. “That it was a suicide note didn’t really come as a surprise.”

  “But Marion—”

  “Of course, Nick didn’t know what I would do about it,” Marion continued softly, sitting next to me dry-eyed on the couch. According to her, she spent that night pacing the floor at home, confused and tormented. In the end, she felt she had no choice but to kill Wendell herself.

  “I loved him, Callie,” she said simply. “I had to spare him that final act of anguish.”

  The next morning, after Wendell checked himself out of the local hospital and headed to the office, Marion got Nick to drive her into Philadelphia as well, ostensibly to shop for a robe and some new pajamas for Wendell’s return to the hospital. She picked a large department store that was about two miles from Wendell’s office, and she left Nick with the car while she went inside. But rather than shop, she simply walked through the store and out the other side, catching a cab to Wendell’s building.

  She had gone up the back stairs, giving Wendell a pleasant surprise when she came in through the bathroom door. They had chatted briefly, lovingly, and then she had offered to give him his morning insulin shot. Once the massive dosage had been given, she quickly kissed him and left him there to die.

  When she reached Nick’s waiting car, he had known immediately that something was terribly wrong. Sitting in the car, sobbing, she finally confessed what she had done. Without much thought, Nick drove to the Smythe building and raced up the back stairs, reentering the room where Wendell now lay, dead, on the floor. Very quickly, Nick made sure there was no evidence there to incriminate Marion. He wiped away her fingerprints from all possible surfaces; then, as a red herring, he slid a short blond hair he saw on the floor under Wendell’s shirt. Apparently, it was just pure luck that the hair was Alan’s and that a needle bearing Alan’s fingerpr
int was in the trash from an insulin dose he had administered to Wendell earlier.

  When I had first come into Wendell’s office, Nick was still there in the bathroom, trying to wipe fingerprints away from the sink, counters, and doorknobs. Hearing me, he had bolted, but the fact that he was left-handed had kept him safely to the left side of the stairwell, out of my range of vision, as I chased him down. When he reached the bottom, he simply exited the stairwell, walked to the car that he had left waiting in a loading zone around the side of the building, and drove away. Nick and Marion drove around for about 20 minutes before returning to the Smythe offices. This time, Marion came up on the elevator, acting confused about the presence of emergency personnel and feigning surprise at the news of her husband’s death.

  “When I realized you would be investigating the murder,” Marion said to me, “I was worried at first. But then I knew the best way to distract you might be to bring Alan’s crimes to light, since that was all happening at the same time anyway. I put the records together in a box and locked it in the safe. I knew the time would come when I could show it to you, and that you would take it from there.”

  I had bought her story, the day of the funeral, that she had “just discovered” the incriminating papers in Wendell’s safe. As Harriet would say, like a bloodhound on the scent of a grouse, I had taken things from there, pursuing Alan with a vengeance. Little had either Marion or I known at the time, of course, that Alan hadn’t finished yet; his subsequent theft and attempted escape had only helped solidify Marion’s plan and my suspicions.

  I knew that I had played right into Marion’s hands. Yet, oddly, I wasn’t as angry with her as I was with Nick. When he realized I was coming too close to the truth, he panicked. Loyalty for his beloved friend and employer had made him act out of desperation.

  “I was not going to kill you,” he rasped mournfully from his place on the couch. “I just wanted to scare you into keeping quiet.”

  I looked over at him, thinking that perhaps I would never know for sure. I was going to let a jury decide that one.