Death is a Bargain (A Kate Kennedy Mystery Book 3)

by Noreen Wald

  As Kate led Billy down the hall to the guest bathroom, she heard Mary Frances ask Marlene, “Did you tell her?”

  Kate had her own news to share, but since hers painted Donna in such a bad light she found herself far more intrigued by what Marlene and Mary Frances would have to report.

  The ritual of bathing a child, helping him into his pajamas, and tucking him into bed stirred up old memories and current fears. To Kate’s surprise, Billy, smelling like lavender soap and mint toothpaste, already knew “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.” She kissed him good night trying to keep a check on her maternal instincts. This boy belonged to another woman. A woman who could have killed his father.

  She returned to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her eyes before heading back to the dining room.

  “Where’s Ballou?” Marlene sat at the cleared table, a yellow pad and pen in front of her, ready for business.

  “Sleeping with Billy.”

  Marlene raised her eyebrows. “Is that recommended by Dr. Spock?”

  “No,” Kate snapped. “By me.”

  From the kitchen she could hear the dishwasher start, then Mary Frances calling out over its nimble, “I’ll be right there.”

  “Don’t you act snotty with me, Kate Kennedy.” Marlene jabbed the pen in her direction. “While you’ve been out playing detective, I’ve been playing nanny, and doing a damn fine job of it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said, feeling her face flush and hot tears ready to roll again. “Really. And I appreciate everything you and Mary Frances have done.” She swallowed hard, trying not to cry. “It’s just that I’m frightened for Billy. I think his mother…”

  “Might be a double murderer.” Mary Frances finished Kate’s sentence, then took a seat at the table.

  Marlene glared at Mary Frances before turning to Kate. “Okay, apology accepted. Hey, I’m sorry too. Let’s get to work, before the flea market murders drive us all crazy.”

  “MonaLisa Buccino thinks Donna electrocuted Whitey Ford and then shot Carl Krieg because he could place her at Whitey’s on Sunday night,” Kate blurted the news out twisting several strands of her short silver hair—a nervous habit she’d picked up decades ago when her hair had been long and the color of chestnuts.

  “So do I.” Mary Frances slapped the table. “And Donna may have had another reason to get rid of Carl.”

  “Billy told us,” Marlene jumped in, stopping Mary Frances cold, “that Uncle Carl sometimes sleeps over, then takes mother and son out for breakfast. Now, isn’t that cozy? You saw the size of her apartment.”

  Kate shook her head, thinking of Donna’s close, if contentious, relationship with Sean Cunningham. Could she have been involved with three men?

  “Who knows what multiple motives Donna had for shooting Carl? Sex adds a whole new dimension.” Mary Frances, the self-proclaimed virgin, spoke with great authority.

  From any angle, an ugly mess. “If—and it’s a big if—Donna did kill both men, we need to know why. Revenge? To collect on Whitey’s insurance? He hadn’t been paying child support? To cover up her animal abuse? To prevent Whitey from forwarding those photographs to the Humane Society? And what about that cut-up negative in her wastebasket?” Kate sighed, then rattled on. “Did she kill Carl because he knew she’d visited Whitey on Sunday night? Or were Whitey and Carl murdered—as Mary Frances suggests—because of Donna’s very complicated romantic entanglements, which may include Sean? This morning in the bakery tent, I heard Sean warn Donna to keep her mouth shut about the abuse.”

  “Remember, Linda told us Freddie’s the photographer, not Whitey.” Marlene stopped writing and frowned. “Maybe Whitey didn’t take those pictures. But then why would he have made that phone call?”

  “Right.” Kate shook her head. “MonaLisa is convinced Freddie took the photographs and Whitey outright lied, wanting glory or to impress her. I’d vote for the latter. Whitey was a ladies’ man, and MonaLisa’s a beauty. I’m sure many men have tried to impress her. She believes Whitey’s lie led to his death and she feels guilty.”

  “Why should she feel guilty?” Mary Frances asked with great indignation. “Seems to me Whitey Ford was a snake who got what he deserved.”

  Hang-’em-high Mary Frances. Yet another side of the dancing ex-nun.

  “Well, Ford was no saint, that’s for sure, but murder is never a form of justice.” Kate sounded preachy. She really had to monitor these morality moments, but Mary Frances had pushed her FAIR PLAY button.

  Marlene looked up from the yellow pad. “And we haven’t even explored the other suspects. Remember how Sean attributed motives for Whitey’s death to everyone in the corridor.”

  “Excluding himself and his brother Jocko.” Kate laughed. It sounded small and tinny. “And today I overheard Freddie Ducksworth threaten Suzanna Jordan. Said he could provide eyewitness evidence that her daughter Olivia visited Whitey’s apartment on the night he died. Apparently, Freddie was watching her from Carl Krieg’s window. He claimed to not only be an eyewitness, but said he had photographs proving Olivia and Whitey were having an affair. Suzanna screamed, accusing Freddie of being a degenerate and a lying vulture.”

  “Incestuous little bunch of busy vendors, aren’t they?” Marlene’s raucous laughter filled the room. “Well, that might help explain Olivia’s bizarre behavior in the corridor right before the fire—or what we all thought was a fire.”

  “What happened?” Mary Frances asked.

  “Olivia kept rattling on about needing to find her mother, seemed nervous as hell. Said she’d received a note from Freddie, and she thought he was blackmailing her. Suzanna waltzed in and yelled ‘Shut up, Olivia,’ just as Ballou started barking, and Linda screamed, ‘Fire!’”

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  Then Kate said, “And, as far as we know, Freddie Ducksworth’s still among the missing.”

  “Jocko too,” Marlene said.

  Mary Frances stood. “I’m going home, but there’s one more thing we haven’t addressed.”

  Probably a half-dozen things, Kate thought, feeling weary, wanting to sleep and think about all this tomorrow.

  “Remember how Linda told us about Suzanna’s car crash, and how it appeared to have been premeditated?” Mary Frances had Kate’s full attention. “What if our theories and our motives are all wet? What if someone is plotting to murder all the corridor vendors? What if there’s a serial killer in the flea market?”

  Twenty

  They’d decided to divide and conquer—Marlene off to Whitey Ford’s memorial service, Kate to Broward General Hospital to visit Donna. That left Mary Frances to babysit Billy, neither adult nor child all that happy about spending the morning together.

  The sun streamed through the double glass doors of Ocean Vista’s lobby, its beams bouncing off the water in Aphrodite’s fountain, the frolicking cupids bathed in its light.

  Kate’s mood was dark. Marlene hadn’t arrived yet. And Mary Frances was pouting while Billy argued his case.

  “I want to see my mommy. I am a big boy. The doctor will let me in. Please, please, Mrs. K.” Billy spoke through tears, pointing at Mary Frances. “I don’t want her to babysit me. I’m not a baby. I’m five.”

  “Well, there you go, Kate. I told you this wouldn’t work.” Mary Frances sounded pleased. Humph. If Mary Frances thought she’d just been relieved of duty, she had another think coming.

  Kate knelt, her right knee cracking, her eyes level with Billy’s. “I know, darling, you miss your mother.” God, how she knew. The boy had wept his way through most of the night, finally falling asleep between Ballou and Kate, violating her own strict, no-Ballou-in-bed rule. “I’ll ask the doctor if you can visit your mother this afternoon. I promise, if he says yes, I’ll bring you to see her.”

  “You promise?”

  She nodd
ed, ruffling his hair. “And I never break a promise.”

  His big blue eyes blinked, then Billy leaned in and whispered in Kate’s ear, “But what will I do with her all day?”

  A question Kate, on several occasions, had asked herself about Mary Frances. She giggled—it felt great—then whispered back, “Don’t worry, Billy, I have a game plan for your play date with Miss Costello.” Then she stood, almost losing her balance. Damn, getting up from a kneeling position got harder and harder.

  “I heard that, Kate Kennedy. A play date? A game plan?” Mary Frances placed fisted hands on narrow hips, clad in the best-cut designer sweatpants Kate had ever seen. Navy blue French terry, piped in white, and topped with a matching jacket, its collar and zipper also trimmed in white. Covering up a bathing suit, Kate hoped.

  “Aren’t you too young to be getting so forgetful? We decided last night that you’d take Billy to Dinah’s for pancakes.” Kate spoke through clenched teeth. “That’s his favorite breakfast. And the waitresses will just love him. Then you’re going to the beach, right? And build a sand castle. If I’m not back by eleven, you’re to take him to the pier and rent a fishing pole. Why are you acting as if all this is news to you?”

  “Okay. Okay.” Mary Frances pushed a stray red curl off her face, put on her sunglasses, and reached for the boy’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  Kate held her breath.

  Billy smiled. “Pancakes.” He grabbed Mary Frances’s hand and waved at Kate. “Tell my mommy, ‘see you later, alligator.’”

  “Just remember I have a tango lesson at noon. So either you or Marlene had better be back here by eleven thirty.”

  Kate exhaled as she watched them go out the front door. Dinah’s, a Palmetto Beach landmark, was a short walk. A block north to Neptune Boulevard, then left toward the Intracoastal. The traffic lining up for the bridge to the mainland would be thick at this hour, but Kate knew Mary Frances would hold Billy’s hand as they crossed the boulevard.

  “Yo, Kate!” She turned and saw Marlene exiting the elevator and heading right toward the back door. “Do you want me to drop you at the hospital? It’s on the way to the memorial.”

  “Please do not shout in the lobby,” Miss Mitford scolded Marlene.

  The condo president stuck out her tongue. Fortunately, the desk clerk had turned her attention to the pigeonholes behind her.

  Kate craved solitude. She hurried to catch up with Marlene, who was holding the door to the parking lot open. “No, thanks. Mary Frances has issued an ultimatum. Kind of like High Noon. If I’m not back in time for her lesson, the tango champion will kill me.”

  Kate opened all four windows and drove down to Fort Lauderdale on A1A rather than I-95, counting on the ocean view to soothe her jangled nerves and hoping the salt air might clear her jumbled mind. If her hair frizzed, so be it. Kate almost believed one of the few pluses about the aging process was that most people seldom seemed to notice older women, so her hair, frizzed or smooth, was almost a non-issue.

  Though the two-lane road made the trip longer, the highway wasn’t an option. Not today. Lately, hardly ever, and Kate really didn’t like to drive. She’d come of age in an era when many New York City women never learned to drive. If she and Charlie hadn’t moved to the suburbs, she’d still be a non-driver. Her sons—and Charlie—had been telling her for years that she made a far better passenger than driver. She tended to agree with them; however, she had to get around, and South Florida had no subway system.

  Besides, traveling at this slower pace, Kate could think.

  Could Donna be as bad as the evidence indicated? A woman who abused animals? A woman who allowed Carl Krieg to stay overnight in that small apartment, while her son slept in the next room? A woman who seemed to want her ex-husband dead in order to collect his insurance money? A woman who shared dirty secrets with the sleazy Sean Cunningham? A woman who appeared to have embraced an immoral lifestyle and then flaunted it?

  She’d better watch out: It was a short leap from a saint-like judgment call to a Salem-like witch burning.

  Donna had raised Billy. Kate liked to think her two sons, good and decent men, reflected their mother’s influence. Would Billy be such a good kid and loving son if Donna was such an evil woman? Would the child so desperately want to see his mother if she’d been abusive? Maybe. Some television self-help gurus thought so.

  She’d visit Donna, form her up-close-and-personal opinion, then call Edmund. She admired Peter’s partner, a well-respected, down-to-earth psychiatrist.

  What is family for? Edmund wouldn’t mind answering a few questions about good and evil. And mother/son relationships.

  Passing all the new, ornate, very expensive high-rise condos dotting the east side of A1A from Oakland Park to Fort Lauderdale, Kate wondered how anyone could afford them. It amazed and rather troubled her that so many people had so much money. Palmetto Beach, doggedly middle-class, now abutted some of the most expensive real estate in South Florida. If she and Ballou walked south, they’d be sharing the same sand, the same sea, and the same sunset with mega-millionaires.

  She drove across the Sunrise Boulevard Bridge, past the Galleria Mall, and the huge, well-stocked bookstore where customers could dock their boats while they browsed through the book racks. Marlene and Kate often went to signings there or just hung out in the store’s comfy chairs, reading, sipping café au lait, and watching the yachts anchor.

  Turning south, she passed through Victoria Park, an area that looked more like New England than South Florida. With its cottages and Cape Cods, Wedgwood blue shutters, well-tended green lawns, and white picket fences, the neighborhood exuded charm and small-town appeal. Only the palm trees, rustling in the morning wind, reminded Kate that she was still in Fort Lauderdale.

  The parking lot at Broward General Hospital appeared to be full, but in a far corner, at least the length of a city block away from the front entrance, she finally found a spot.

  An elderly volunteer—elderly now defined as anyone ten years older than Kate—handed her a pass, saying, “Room 4122. Miss Viera already has a visitor, but since she’s allowed two, you can go right on up, dear.”

  The lobby, somehow reminding Kate more of a hotel than a hospital, featured both a gift shop and a McDonald’s. She bought a flowering plant in the former and two cups of hot tea—one for Donna, one for herself—in the latter.

  Armed with her small gifts, she shared an elevator with a couple of nurses and two obviously very ill patients in wheelchairs, one a woman about Kate’s age, one a boy about Billy’s. The boy’s bald head indicated he was receiving chemotherapy. She said a quick prayer. For the patients? Or because Billy and she weren’t the patients. With the mental equivalent of a shrug, she decided to let God figure it out.

  Outside Donna’s room, she heard a man’s voice and eavesdropped shamelessly. “If you talk, you’re even crazier than I thought you were.” Sean Cunningham sounded both threatening and a bit…what?…Frightened? “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Donna.”

  “Get out of here, Sean, you’re running late.” Donna’s voice was weak but icy. Kate strained to hear her. “And timing is everything for us circus performers, right? Like when the smoke bombs went off.” Donna coughed, a raspy, scary sound. “Go to Whitey’s memorial service, you old hypocrite. Light a candle for me.”

  Twenty-One

  Why hadn’t Kate wanted to ride with her? The memorial was at St. Anthony’s, a couple of blocks from the hospital. Marlene wondered who’d picked the Fort Lauderdale church for the service. Whitey’s parish, if he’d been a churchgoer, would be in Palmetto Beach.

  Had Sean Cunningham or one of Ford’s corridor colleagues planned a reception after the service? She’d only had a quick cup of coffee and a stale, half-toasted bagel at dawn—well, seven thirty, but way too early for Marlene, who like Count Dracula and the Phantom of the Opera prefe
rred the music of the night. A spread—maybe lox and cream cheese and fresh bagels in the church hall—would be most welcome. More important, by mixing with the mourners, she could field questions without appearing too pushy.

  If not she’d just have to grab people in the vestibule and fire away.

  Over the years, Marlene had made the arrangements for far too many funerals, the price paid for outliving so many loved ones. She’d never planned a memorial service without a food-filled reception following. Would the circus crowd be as hospitable?

  Kate once had told Marlene that St. Anthony’s reminded her of a traditional Northern church. So many South Florida churches were modem, their architectural design as airy and light as a beach resort, their stained glass windows done in pastels. Whenever Kate, who put great faith in St. Anthony—revered for finding lost objects—needed to do some serious praying, she often bypassed her parish church, St. Elizabeth’s, and drove down to St. Anthony’s.

  “Blimey, Marlene, don’t you look like mourner-in-chief?” Linda Rutledge called out as Marlene entered the last pew. “Come on, let’s go sit down front where we can see all the action.”

  Marlene, who’d gone to great trouble to dress appropriately for Whitey Ford’s memorial, took umbrage at Linda’s remark. Yes, she was wearing a tailored, black, lightweight wool pantsuit and, for her, sensible shoes—sling-backs, closed toes—but she hardly looked like a grieving widow.

  Nevertheless, she nodded and followed the doll lady, dressed in aqua satin and a matching cartwheel straw hat the size of a bicycle tire, down the aisle.

  The front pews were packed. The circus performers and crew had come out in force. The colorfully clad entertainers and the tattooed, tough-talking roustabouts had turned into an eclectic congregation.