by Leona Karr
“Holy cow! What do we do now?”
“I’m going to pay the Langdons a visit. I want to see their reaction to the discovery before they hear about the grave from someone else.”
He took the patrol car and made a quick stop at his house to shower and change clothes. The remains of last night’s dinner and the lingering scent of Ashley’s perfume in the bedroom did nothing to improve his mood. The prospect of seeing her again, even in the frame of official business, disturbed him at levels he wouldn’t have thought possible. What more could they say to each other?
He was still wondering the same thing when he arrived at the Langdons’ and Clara answered the door. When she saw who it was, she said, “Everyone’s about to sit down for dinner. I’ll tell them you’re here.”
Almost immediately, Ellen Brenden appeared and greeted him with a slight questioning lift of an eyebrow. “Good evening, Officer.”
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” he quickly apologized. “It escaped me completely that it might be your dinner hour.”
“We’re eating early tonight.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll just wait instead of coming back.”
“Have you dined already?” she asked. “Maybe you would like to join us?” She lowered her voice. “The usual table conversation is boring, boring.”
I can fix that, Brad thought and quickly accepted her invitation. What could be better timing than dropping the bombshell in the middle of the dining room table and watching what happened?
Ellen ushered him into the dining room and said brightly, “We have a guest.”
A stunned silence from everyone seated at the table greeted the announcement. Jonathan’s frown was a mixture of irritation and speculation. Philip Langdon and Paul Fontaine sitting across from Ashley, exchanged glances. Ashley visibly paled when she saw him.
Ellen indicated Brad should take a chair next to Ashley and motioned to Clara to set another place. Mrs. Mertz scowled and left the dining room. Brad was surprised to see Philip Langdon.
Ellen smiled a little smugly as she sat down in her chair at the foot of the table. “Isn’t it nice Officer Taylor could join us?”
The weighted silence was almost unbearable.
“I appreciate the invitation,” Brad responded politely.
He couldn’t imagine what Ashley was thinking. She was sitting close enough for him to be aware of her every breath. The familiar scent of her perfume taunted him. Surely, she didn’t think he’d barged in like this to embarrass her. She had given him the impression that she didn’t eat with the family all that regularly. He was sorry that tonight was one of the exceptions, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
Sitting at the head of the table, Jonathan seemed determined to ignore the police officer’s intrusion. He gave his attention to the bisque soup, and leg of lamb entrée.
Philip waited until the meal was under way before addressing Brad directly. “Is there some reason you’re honoring us with your presence tonight?”
Paul Fontaine quickly spoke up quickly. “You’re wearing your uniform, so this visit must be official.”
“In a way, it is.”
“You have some news…about Lorrie’s attacker?” Ellen asked, leaning forward excitedly.
“No,” Brad answered quickly. He didn’t want to get Ashley’s hopes up. He’d hoped to wait to launch his bombshell until he could better gauge its impact. It wasn’t to be.
Jonathan’s fist slammed down on the table and everybody jumped. “Enough! State your business, sir!”
Brad slowly laid down his fork. “What I have to tell all of you is pretty shocking! Maybe I should wait until after dinner—” He let his gaze travel around the table to gauge their reactions.
“Our appetites are already spoiled.” Philip’s tone was as cutting as a steak knife.
Brad hesitated. “Maybe we should excuse the ladies?”
“No,” Ashley and Ellen replied in unison.
“All right. We made a gruesome discovery this morning.” He paused. Sometimes just a flicker of an eyelid could betray guilt, but all three men just seemed to be waiting for him to continue.
“The storm uprooted a dead tree in the cemetery and exposed a body buried there.”
“Oh, no,” Ashley gasped as if she were remembering their early morning visit.
“It wasn’t one of the pioneer graves,” he said.
Jonathan gave a dismissing wave of his hand. “I fail to see why you’re bringing this ghoulish discovery to our attention.”
“What made you think we would be the least bit interested in this kind of macabre happening?” Philip demanded in a disgusted tone.
“How gruesome,” Ellen said with a shiver.
Only Fontaine kept his eyes steadily focused on Brad’s face.
“There’s more, isn’t there, Officer?”
“I’m afraid so. The grave appears to be only a few years old. A cheap suitcase buried with the corpse may reveal his identity. Apparently it is similar to the one Timothy Templeton was carrying the last time he was seen.”
A frigid stillness enveloped the dining room for a moment, then Ellen jumped to her feet and bound out of the room.
Ashley shoved back her chair and followed her. When Ashley caught up with her in the hall, she quickly put an arm around Ellen’s trembling shoulders.
“It’s all right…it’s all right,” she murmured as Ellen continued walking, hunched over and sobbing until they reached the family living room.
When Ellen dropped down on a sofa and covered her face, Ashley quickly sat down beside her, trying to remember if she’d heard about any special connection between Pamela’s fiancé and her aunt.
“I’m sorry, Ellen,” she said gently. “This must be a terrible shock.”
“Not really,” she said in a choked voice. “I’ve been afraid of something like this for a long time.”
“You have?” Ashley wasn’t even sure she wanted to know why. She’d experienced enough emotional trauma on Greystone Island to last her a lifetime.
“It’s my nephew, Kent,” Ellen sobbed.
Ashley stiffened. Something ominous in Ellen’s tone made her wary of becoming a confidante.
Brad should be listening to all of this, not me.
Ellen took a deep breath as if what she was going to say demanded every bit of effort. “When Timothy got engaged to Pamela, a lot of drinking and gambling went on during those yachting parties. Kent usually had to drop out of the poker games when the stakes got too high, but one night he won big and collected an enormous IOU from Timothy. Kent was deliriously happy and promised to give me back every dollar I’d loaned him when he collected from Timothy.” Her voice broke. “He’s really a good boy. I’ve done my best to help him all I can. Kent is family, and I think he really loves me.”
“I’m sure he does,” Ashley said in a reassuring tone even though she sincerely doubted the basis for his affection. As much as Ellen had given to everyone else, she seemed to have received very little expression of love in return.
Ellen straightened up and after taking a deep breath she looked Ashley in the eye. “The night Pamela died, Kent and Timothy had a big blowup. Timothy refused to pay the gambling debt and accused Kent of cheating. He even convinced the other poker players to turn on Kent. They told him he wasn’t welcome in their company anymore. You can see how devastated he was, can’t you?”
Ashley nodded.
“Kent swore to get even.” Her voice trailed off into a whisper. “I guess he did.”
Chapter Fourteen
Brad learned very little about Timothy’s relationship with the three men as they gathered in the living room after the explosive dinner. As far as he could tell, none of them would be mourning the young man’s demise. All of them seemed open about their dislike of Pamela’s fiancé.
Jonathan was the most vitriolic in his remarks. “The world is better off without him. I only wish whoever had planted him in that grave had done it soon
er.” He swallowed hard. “Maybe my Pamela would be alive today.”
“You should have done something yourself, Jonathan,” his brother lashed out. “God knows, there was enough warning. You knew about the drug parties. How did you expect her to keep clean? The poor innocent little fool thought she was in love with the bastard.”
“It’s easy to have hindsight,” Fontaine offered as a way of lowering the tension between the two brothers. “Both of you had her best interests at heart. She was strong-willed like her mother. We all knew that.”
“What are you going to do about this, Taylor?” Philip demanded in a tone that indicated he didn’t put much hope in anything constructive being done by the island’s policeman.
“Find out who’s responsible,” Brad answered evenly.
Fontaine nodded in agreement. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t find enough suspects coming out of the woodwork from Templeton’s past to keep you busy for quite a while.”
“Oh, it may not take as long you might think,” Brad offered pointedly. “Sometimes you don’t have to go too far afield to find the answer you’re looking for.”
There was a dead silence. Before any of the men could respond to his insinuation that the solution to Timothy’s death might be close by, Ashley appeared in the doorway.
Instead of coming into the room, she waited for Brad to join her. He quickly excused himself.
“We need to talk,” she said and he could tell from her solemn expression it wasn’t going to be a cozy little chat.
“Let’s find some privacy.”
The weather was too inclement to go outside. The way things were between them, Brad knew going up to her room wasn’t an option. When he saw the door to the library open across the hall, he said, “Let’s talk in there.”
As he put a guiding hand on her arm, he could feel tight muscular tension in her body. Was she steaming because of the way he’d handled his announcement at dinner, or was she just furious with him, period?
After he flipped on an overhead light, they crossed the room to a grouping of furniture in front of the dark fireplace. If anyone had been sitting there recently enjoying any of the books lining the shelves from floor to ceiling, there was no evidence of it. The room had a dank, musty smell that matched its chilly temperature.
“Okay,” he said as he eased down on a leather couch beside her. “Let’s have it.”
He was prepared for a lashing tirade about the insensitive way he’d delivered the shocking news. What she had to say took him totally by surprise.
“Ellen is convinced that her nephew, Kent, killed Timothy Templeton.”
“She is? Why?”
He listened carefully as Ashley told him what Ellen had said about the gambling debt that Timothy had refused to pay. “Kent vowed to get even.”
Brad digested this startling revelation for a long minute before he replied evenly, “That doesn’t mean he killed the guy.” He wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions…not on the assumptions of an emotional aunt.
“But he could have,” Ashley insisted.
“I’ll have to do some investigating. Check on Kent’s whereabouts the last time Timothy was seen alive. It’ll take a little time. I hope Ellen isn’t going to go to pieces on us.”
“I think she already has.” Ashley’s voice faltered. “I discovered she’s our ghostly phantom.”
“When? How?” He stared at her. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
He reached over, took her hand in his as she told him how she’d learned about Ellen’s sleepwalking.
“I feel so sorry for her. She undoubtedly doesn’t remember dressing up or traveling all over the house. All the tragedies the woman’s endured must be responsible for her condition. Ellen admitted to me that she has dreams and sometimes wakes up more tired than when she went to bed. I think we should alert Dr. Hadley.”
“Not before talking over her condition with Jonathan. There may be ramifications that we aren’t aware of.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Jonathan’s another one under this roof who is carrying an emotional load. As acting senior member of the Langdon family, handling the scandal of Timothy’s violent end will be another burden on his shoulders.”
“How did Philip and Fontaine react?”
“Both of them readily expressed satisfaction that the no-account social climber got what he deserved. No love lost there. They blame Timothy for Pamela’s drug addiction. If you can believe the family, she’d been clean before she became romantically involved with him. Because of Timothy’s ironclad alibi of being at the yacht party when she died, I don’t think the authorities looked too closely at him. I’m going to spend some time on the mainland tomorrow investigating on my own. I’ll see if I can pick up anything incriminating on Kent Brenden.” Then he impulsively asked, “Would you like to run over with me? Do a little shopping or something?”
She shook her head. “Can’t. I worked hard today getting everything packed. Tomorrow I’ll be taking care of the final preparations for shipping.” She paused. “I’ve made my plane reservations for San Francisco the following day.”
His heart sank. “Not so soon!”
“It’s better that way.”
“No, it isn’t!” he protested. “We’ve got too much to say to each other. Honey, I’ve really dropped the ball all the way around. You can’t run off and leave me without giving me the chance to explain.” He put a finger over her lips when she started to argue. “I’ll come back early tomorrow afternoon and we’ll go for a walk and talk.” He knew better than to arrange anything that wasn’t extremely casual and nonthreatening.
She withdrew her hand from his. “All right, but I’m warning you, I’m not very good at goodbyes.” She added in a strained voice, “Especially one like this.”
They walked out of the library together. He might have kissed her good night if they hadn’t seen Jonathan watching them from the door of the sitting room.
“See you tomorrow,” Brad said as he turned away and headed down the hall to the front door.
Ashley pretended not to see Jonathan and hurried up the main staircase. She didn’t want him asking her what they’d been talking about in the library. Tomorrow would be her last day in the house, and she was more than ready to put the tragedies of the Langdon family behind her.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Ashley had the entire collection ready for pickup and had alerted the auction company to arrange for the shipping of the heavily insured vintage clothes and accessories. She felt as if she’d run a marathon and just crossed the finished line. Satisfied that she’d fulfilled Lorrie’s commitment to the job, Ashley did her best to ignore a persistent sense of loss. After tomorrow, she’d leave the island and Brad behind. Her emotions were in tatters.
Never being one to lie to herself, she knew putting a continent between them wasn’t going to erase the heart-ache. It would be better to leave without seeing him again. Why in the world had she agreed to spend the last afternoon with him? It was pure stupidity to torture herself with a love that had been doomed from the beginning.
She telephoned her business in San Francisco. Kate Delawney answered. “Hollywood Boutique. How may I help you?”
“You can put out the welcome mat,” Ashley answered with a smile in her voice.
“Ashley! What good news!”
“I’m finished here and taking a flight back tomorrow afternoon.”
“That’s wonderful. Do you want someone to pick you up at the airport?”
“No, I’ll take a taxi directly to the shop.”
“Wait ’til you hear the good news I have for you,” Kate bubbled excitedly. “You’re not going to believe it.”
“Tell me now. I could use some good news.”
“The west coast outlets you’ve been working on came through—Seattle, Los Angeles, Monterey and San Diego. Their initial orders are more than we have in stock. I don’t know how we can possibly fill them.”
; “We’ll bring in additional staff,” Ashley said quickly. “Get the applications of possible new staff ready for me. And a million thanks, Kate. You don’t know what a blessing you are.”
As they chatted for a few more minutes about business, Ashley realized how much she’d missed the day-to-day challenges. It would be great getting back to work—wouldn’t it?
After she’d hung up, she quickly dialed Ted and Amy’s house. She wanted to make sure her sister wouldn’t be worrying about anything being left unfinished.
“Lorrie and I were just having tea,” Amy said when she answered. “Wish you were here to join us, Ashley.”
“I will be shortly.”
“Wonderful. Here’s Lorrie.”
Ashley quickly told her sister she could relax. “I’ve finished the assignment and I’m confident the auction house will be satisfied and honor your contract with them.”
“I owe you a big one, Sis,” she said with an audible catch in her throat. “You really came through for me.”
“That’s what big sisters are for,” Ashley responded lightly. “How’s your health?”
“Pretty much back to normal. In fact, I’m feeling guilty about lying around. I’m ready to get back to work.” She lowered her voice. “How are things going with you?”
“What do you mean?” Ashley stalled.
“As if you didn’t know, Sis. Come on, give. What about you and that handsome policeman?”
“I’m afraid that’s already pretty much history.”
“From the sound of your voice, I can tell you’re not happy about it. What happened? Did he already have someone else?”
“No, not at all,” she answered quickly. “Brad…Brad loves me, and I love him, but…”
“But what for heaven’s sake?”
“Simply put, we’re too incompatible for a serious relationship. Brad’s life and career is on the island.”
“Hell’s bells!” Lorrie swore. “Policemen are needed all over the place. Why can’t he transfer?”
“Because the island is his life. It’s a part of him and he’s content to live here the rest of his life. I couldn’t bear it for even a few months out of the year.”