The auctioneer’s voice boomed from the other side of the room. “Going once, going twice, sold to the beautiful lady in blue.”
There was a swell of clapping. Laurelle shrieked and waved to Paul.
“Looks like you just bought yourself a weekend at Sea Ranch,” I said.
He grimaced. “I try to remember the money goes to a good cause.”
“At least it wasn’t the weekend in Paris,” I offered.
“We may get that one yet.” He turned back and gave serious attention to his drink. “You ever been to Sea Ranch?”
“Once, a couple of years ago we visited a friend of my husband’s who has a place up there.” It wasn’t a trip I liked to remember. “My daughter and I were carsick the whole way up and the whole way back.”
“Yeah, the road does that to some people. To my mind, Mendocino is a much nicer place. It’s easier to get to and more... I don’t know, more real, I guess. There’s a place I like to stay, sort of off the beaten track. A cluster of private cottages nestled among the trees, most with a view of the ocean.”
“Sound nice.”
“It is. The place is called The Timbercreek Lodge. Expensive, but worth every penny.”
Something about my expression must have caught his eye. “You know it?” he asked.
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Not a lot of people have.” He offered a conspiratory smile and took another sip of his drink.
My gaze drifted from the glass of scotch to his raised arm, where it froze on the black ebony cufflinks.
Simms. The initial “S.”
My heart did a somersault behind my breastbone and my hands began to shake. I took my time setting my glass of wine on the counter, then looked up and asked, “Do you smoke?”
He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You want one? You’ll have to step outside to light up, I’m afraid. The nonsmoking lobby has penetrated even these sacred walls.”
It couldn’t be coincidence, there were too many pieces that fit. “You told me you didn’t know Mona Sterling,” I said, my voice high-pitched and tight.
The color drained from Paul's face. His eyes locked on mine. For a moment neither of us spoke. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said at last.
“No?”
“No.” His smile was affable.
But it did nothing to quiet the pounding in my chest. I had a pretty good idea I knew who Mona had been seeing. Knew who had been there at her place Saturday night. Had I also discovered the identity of her killer?
“I’d met her a few times, of course,” Paul continued, still smiling. But the smile went only as far as his lips. His eyes were dark and unreadable.
“I... I need to get home early,” I stammered. “Sitters, you know. So hard to find a good one.”
I turned abruptly and left, on legs so wobbly I wasn’t sure they’d support me. I needed to call Michael. I made it to the front entrance, realized I had no idea where I was headed, went back inside and found Mary Nell.
“Is there a pay phone around here?” I asked her.
“There’s a phone in the clubhouse lobby. You’re supposed to log in with your membership number, but I’m sure if you explained you were here with the school they’d let you use it. Or I’ll come along and you can use my number. Is it Anna? You look worried.”
Then I remembered the phone in Mona’s car. “No, it’s nothing like that. If I’m not back by the time they start the raffle, will you cover for me? All you have to do is read off the prize and then pull a ticket from the basket.”
“Don’t worry, I’m an old hand at raffles. You sure everything’s okay?”
I nodded, looked over my shoulder for Paul, who’d disappeared, then raced to the car. Because of the valet parking, I had to search for it in a crunch of tightly parked vehicles. I found it just as the attendant found me. “Help you, ma’am?”
I mumbled something about feeling ill, then waited while he moved the BMW that was parked in front, slapped a couple of dollars in his hand and took off down the driveway. My original plan had been to find the car and call Michael, but with the attendant waiting to slip the BMW into my spot, I couldn’t simply sit there.
When I got to the bottom of the hill, I turned onto the main road, then pulled off to the shoulder to make the call. I was punching in the number when I felt a hand reach over from the back seat and take the phone from me.
“I’d rather you didn’t do that,” Paul said.
Chapter 22
I opened my mouth to scream but managed only a thin, ineffective squeak. A detail that hardly mattered since Paul and I were the only two people within at least a mile. I maneuvered myself to the side of the car, against the door, though that hardly mattered either with Paul breathing down my neck the way he was.
Clutching the phone in his left hand and something small and shiny in the right, he climbed over to the front seat, where he turned to me with a menacing scowl. Although my heart was pounding against my ribs, I forced myself to meet his gaze.
In all honesty, he didn’t look any happier about the situation than I felt.
“Sorry if I startled you,” he said after a moment I ventured a quick peek at the glistening object in his right hand. When I finally determined it was a silver cigarette lighter and not some palm-sized weapon, I allowed myself a deep, full lung’s worth of air.
“Startled is hardly the word for it,” I gulped.
Paul replaced the phone in the cradle, then spent a few moments adjusting his coat sleeves, which had ridden up over his cuffs. “I wanted to talk to you before you did anything rash,” he explained.
“Like turn you in?”
“I was hoping I could convince you not to do that” His smile was tinged with an incongruous boyishness, as though he’d been caught by a doting grandmother with his hand in the cookie jar.
“You’re kidding.”
The smile faded. “No, I’m quite serious.”
My throat constricted again. Paul might not have had a weapon, but we still weren’t on equal footing. He was at least six feet tall and muscular. The old adage “go for the groin” didn’t do me much good either. Even if I’d been limber enough to twist my knee free of the steering wheel, the damn gear shift was in the way.
“Is that why you decided to ambush me?” I asked.
“Ambush? I was simply waiting for you. How was I supposed to know you’d decide to bypass the valet service?” He readjusted his left sleeve. “How did you find out about me and Mona anyway?”
“You admit it then?”
He cleared his throat. “Let’s just say I wasn’t being completely truthful before, when I said I didn’t know her.”
I touched on the key points—brand of scotch, cigarettes, Timbercreek Lodge, cufflinks. “You’re one of the few men who still wears shirts without button cuffs.”
Paul looked puzzled.
“Mona had ordered a pair of monogrammed cufflinks, with diamonds. Real classy.”
Paul ran a hand across his forehead, his eyes half-closed. Even in the dark I could see that his expression was pained.
“What’s the matter? You wishing you’d waited until you got your gift before killing her?”
His eyes popped open. “Is that what you think? That I killed her?”
“You were there, weren’t you?”
He groaned.
“I thought so. It explains why there was no sign of a struggle. What did you do, conk her on the head while you were whispering sweet nothings in her ear?” I pulled back as Paul leaned forward. “Were you getting tired of her, is that why you did it? Or maybe she was becoming too demanding?”
Paul laughed, a hollow sound devoid of all humor. “This is really rich, you know? I’ve spent the last week drowning in guilt. As soon as I’ve begun to work my way through that, turns out I’m a prime suspect in her murder.”
“Hey, it was you who asked me not to turn you in.”
“Yeah, well I wasn’t talking about murde
r, for Christ’s sake.”
It was clear we were having a bit of a communication problem. “What about the guilt?”
He sighed heavily, rubbed his jaw and then his forehead. “Mona and I were, uh, well, you were right about us seeing each other. It had been going on for a couple of months. That Saturday, we had a fight. A big fight. It was a ...” Paul paused for a moment, looked away and gave another sigh. “Somehow she found out about Laurelle.”
“Found out? You mean she didn’t know?”
“Well, she knew. But she, uh, sort of got the impression we were getting a divorce.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out where she’d picked up that notion. I wondered if he’d mentioned it in an offhand manner or laid it on thick, rife with emotion.
Paul’s eyes flickered in my direction, then away again. He drew in a deep breath. “What a mess. What a total, fucking mess. I can’t believe I got myself into something like this.”
A moment or two passed while Paul shifted his shoulders and twisted uncomfortably in his seat. He shot me a pleading, helpless look, but I wasn’t buying. He sighed and forged ahead anyway.
“She was around the office a lot, meeting with Stan, dropping off papers, that sort of thing. We got to talking and it turns out we’re both opera lovers. Laurelle hates anything that doesn’t show on a big screen with a good-looking male lead, so when a client gave me a couple of tickets, I asked Mona if she wanted to go.” He cleared his throat. “You know how things happen. Mona could carry on a real conversation, which was something of a turn-on in itself. And she had a terrific sense of humor. It’s not that Laurelle is stupid, but what with all those babies and everything...”
“That’s what this was then,” I asked sarcastically, “a meeting of the minds?”
“Not entirely. But it wasn’t some meaningless affair either.”
“Ah, a meaningful affair. Only you couldn’t tell Mona the truth about your wife, and I don’t imagine you told Laurelle anything at all about Mona.”
A car drove past. In the glare of the headlights, I could see that Paul looked a little green around the gills. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” he said, “to see if I couldn’t persuade you to keep quiet about this. If Laurelle finds out she’ll kill me.” Paul’s voice faltered. “Sorry, poor choice of words. But it would be the end of everything. She’d run to Stan, and he’d hang me out to dry for sure. I’d be out on my ear with no job, no house, no membership at the club. Nothing.”
Paul’s suave and sophisticated veneer was melting by the minute, like ice cream on a summer afternoon. Robert Redford transmuted into Danny DeVito right before my eyes.
“Laurelle’s his only child, you know,” Paul continued. “Stan treats her like a princess.”
I suppose it was no wonder then, that she often acted like one.
“I never thought about the repercussions.” Paul swallowed a hiccup. “Things got out of hand, and then before I could figure out what to do about it, they got worse.”
“Until Mona died, and suddenly they got better again.”
“I didn’t kill her, for Christ’s sake. You can’t really believe that.”
“But you were there?”
He shifted. “For a while.”
“And you did fight. The two of you had a drink, talked, she confronted you with the truth about Laurelle, you panicked—”
“But I didn’t kill her,” he insisted. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “We didn’t even have the drink. She launched right into the fight part. I don’t know how she figured it out, but she really laid into me, wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain. Then when I heard she’d killed herself, I...” His voice broke with emotion. “Jesus, you can’t imagine what I felt.”
His remorse seemed genuine enough, but I thought guilt would probably elicit a similar reaction. My mind replayed the events of that Monday morning. “Did you use the toilet while you were there?”
His eyes shot open. “What kind of question is that?”
“Just answer it.”
“I guess I might have. What difference does it make?”
Mona had clearly had a drink with someone that evening. Had there been another person at her house, as well? Or was Paul twisting what had happened to suit his own purpose? At the moment, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
Paul continued to massage his temples. “Christ, I can’t believe what’s happening here.”
“If Mona was alive when you left, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I can’t prove it though.”
“Maybe if you just explain to the police what happened—” I reached my hand toward the ignition.
“Wait a minute.”
My hand shot back to my lap.
“She got a phone call while I was there. Someone named Alice. Mona said she couldn’t talk right then. There was some exchange about Alice dropping by later. I left about five o’clock. If Alice came over after that, or if Mona returned the call even, it would prove she was still alive after I left.”
“Alice? Her sister?”
“I don’t know about the sister part, but I heard her say the name a couple of times.” Paul gave me another pleading look. “The thing is, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’d really like to keep it from Laurelle. And Stan. You won’t say anything to them, will you? Please.”
“I don’t know. I’m going to have to tell the police though.”
He groaned. “They’ll probably end up telling her. I’ll be up shit creek for sure.”
I thought being up shit creek was probably preferable to being in prison, but I wasn’t so sure Paul saw it that way. I glanced over at him to see if he was readying for some last minute surprise attack. Instead, he was slumped down in his seat, looking glum. He didn’t even blink when I turned the ignition.
“You want a ride home?” I asked.
“No,” he sighed, “you’d better take me back to the auction. Laurelle will be full of questions about my absence as it is.”
<><><>
Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the same spot by the side of the road and punched the number I’d started earlier.
“Run that by me again,” Michael said groggily.
I switched the phone to my other ear. “You weren’t asleep, were you?”
“Not totally. Well on my way though. It’s been a busy couple of days between this murder business and the arson.”
“I thought the reward money had kids talking up a storm.”
“Right. Only thing is, I haven’t found a one of them who actually knows anything.”
“You want me to call back in the morning?”
He humphed. “Lot of good that would do. I’m already awake. Besides, you’ve got me interested.”
I told him about my conversation with Paul, how he’d been at Mona’s house the evening she died, and why she was keeping their relationship secret. “He convinced her they had to keep quiet until his divorce was final. I don’t know how long he’d have strung her along if she hadn’t found out the truth.”
“You think Paul killed her?”
“He says he didn’t.”
Michael drew in a breath. “Damn it, Kate, you can’t go around asking people if they’re guilty of murder. Sooner or later you’re bound to find someone who doesn’t take well to that sort of thing.”
“The question just keeps popping up.”
“Doesn’t say much for the company you keep.” There was a deliberate pause. “Don’t forget this thing with your tires either. You may have already made someone antsy.”
I hadn’t forgotten. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could put out of your mind, even when you tried. Even when you told yourself it was probably the work of some hit-and-miss vandal rather than a killer.
“You listening?” Michael asked.
“I’m not about to do anything reckless,” I told him. “But I’m not about to barricade the doors and crawl under my bed, either.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, well you’re a long way from the latter.”
“Anyway,” I said, steering the conversation back to where we’d started, “the interesting part of all this is that while Paul was at Mona’s, she got a call from Alice. He said it sounded like Alice was planning on stopping by that evening.”
“Stopping by Mona’s?”
“Right.”
“That would mean she had to be fairly close by.” Michael paused. “You think you could get me a picture of Alice?”
“Sharon probably has one. Why?”
“The cops in Seattle have been asking around, trying to help us out. Turns out Alice is involved with some shady guy. He has a rap sheet long enough to paper a room. When they questioned him about Alice’s whereabouts, he got real vague. And he missed work for a couple of days last week, days which just happen to coincide with Mona’s death.”
“You’re thinking Alice and this guy might be responsible for Mona’s death?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“But why?”
“Hell, I don’t know. You said they didn’t get along. Mona’s rich, Alice is poor. Mona has it made, Alice is drifting around feeling life’s been unfair. Both she and the guy were dopers. Maybe they just needed money.”
“It’s as good a theory as any, I guess.”
“I’d at least like to talk to her. You never know which contact is going to lead you to the pot of gold.” Michael was quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet that comes with thinking. “How well do you know Paul’s wife?”
“Laurelle? She has a kid in Anna’s class. And we were working on the auction together. She’s not really my type though, and I’m definitely not hers. Why?”
“How does the ‘injured wife’ scenario strike you?”
“What? Now you think it might have been Laurelle who killed Mona?”
“Just running through the possibilities. In some ways it’s a woman’s kind of crime. Neat and tidy. Men tend to be messier. They go for knives or guns or brute force.”
I tried to picture Laurelle as a killer. She had a nasty enough disposition at times, but what with the high heels, the bracelets and the long, delicate nails, it seemed she’d have some trouble managing the rudiments of the act
Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series) Page 18