Death is a Bargain (A Kate Kennedy Mystery Book 3)
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“Bund? You mean like the groups Nazi sympathizers joined just before America entered World War II?” Kate felt repulsed.
Jeff nodded. “Exactly.” He looked bleak. “I don’t know how—or if—that tidbit ties into the murders, but those are the ugly facts, ma’am.”
“What about the four visitors? We know Suzanna’s motive—to protect her daughter. And Olivia’s—unrequited love, or maybe a romantic fling, followed by rejection if Whitey rebuffed her advances. But what about Linda and Sean?”
“Those two share a long and interesting history, Kate. Linda worked as a lap dancer in a men’s-only club Sean owned. The doll lady met her husband there. But before the oil baron, she’d danced in Whitey’s lap. That’s how their love affair began.”
Twenty-Six
“Son of a b—”
“Marlene, lower your voice. Billy will hear you.” Catching their breath and a few rays of the early afternoon sun on Kate’s balcony before leaving for the hospital, they’d traded tales of their respective investigations. Revelations of Linda’s duplicity had driven Marlene to foul language.
“That lying witch,” Marlene sputtered. “She played me like putty.”
“What intrigues me is why Linda lied. Why should it matter how many years ago she met Sean and Whitey? Or where? Why would meeting Sean at Ireland’s Inn after her husband’s death be okay, but not at the club Sean owned. She’d admitted to dancing there. And to an affair with Whitey.” Kate brushed a stray silver hair out of her eye. “I wonder if Linda knows that Sean already told us about her and Whitey. Of course, he implied their romance had been more recent.”
“Maybe,” Marlene almost shouted, “the affair was recent. Maybe it never ended. Maybe Linda and Whitey were sleeping together all through her deliriously happy marriage to George.”
“Is it time to go see my mommy?” Billy stood in the open door leading to Kate’s balcony, Ballou at his side. The dog ran over for a quick pat from both Kate and Marlene.
“Yes, darling, it’s time.” Kate stood. “And if Auntie Marlene promises to behave, she can come with us.”
They drove down A1A in Marlene’s 1957 white Chevy convertible with the top down. Billy, all smiles, dubbed the car “neat.” Donna must say “neat,” meaning so much more than nice. Or could today’s kids be using a slang expression popular decades ago?
An old-model maroon car behind them ran the Oakland Boulevard light, then immediately slowed down. Since you can’t pass on A1A, what was the driver’s hurry? If the idea wasn’t so paranoid, Kate would swear they were being followed by a rank amateur.
When Marlene turned right to take the Sunrise Bridge to the mainland, the old car turned too. Kate tried to get a look at the driver, but the car had tinted windows. By the time they reached the hospital, Kate relaxed. The maroon car was no longer on their tail.
Though they had to park yards away from the entrance, Kate and Marlene walked into the lobby in good spirits. Billy’s rambling reportage of the tango lesson and how Mary Frances’s teacher had danced with him had kept them laughing.
The little boy seemed almost happy. Certainly happier than at any time since being separated from his mother.
Kate accepted—and felt grateful—that the flaky ex-nun had been responsible for Billy’s mood swing.
In the gift shop, after much discussion, Billy selected a pink rose in a glass vase for his mother. Then Kate and Marlene waited in the hall, giving Billy some alone time with his mother.
“Should I ask Donna about the cut-up negative I found in her wastebasket?” Kate worried that an innocent Donna might report her snooping to Nick Carbone and, maybe worse, ban her from seeing Billy. She had no idea how a guilty Donna might react.
“I thought we decided one of Whitey’s final four visitors is our killer.”
“Donna might have expunged herself from that list. And murdered her great-uncle to make sure the complete count never reached the police.”
Marlene looked as if she needed a cigarette. Kate recognized her sister-in-law’s Bette Davis-like nervous hand gestures that so perfectly mimicked smoking. “I bet great-uncle Carl put those pieces in the basket.” Fire and Ice-painted fingernails flew past Kate’s face.
“Why?”
“Well,” Marlene floundered, “well, maybe to cover up evidence of animal abuse.”
“It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?” Kate stared at her own nails, unpainted, and in desperate need of TLC. “Carl could have been covering up Donna’s elephant abuse, right?”
“Okay. Let’s go in and talk to her before Nick Carbone or one of his men show up.”
Kate scrambled through her big black linen bag for a Pepcid AC.
“Mrs. K, Mommy says I can print my name on her cast.” Billy waved a Magic Marker at Kate. “The nurse gave me this. You and Marlene can autogwaph her leg too. That’s what it’s called.”
Donna, smiling through gritted teeth, said, “Don’t press too hard, Billy.”
“Are you sure you should be doing this?” Kate tried to keep total disapproval out of her voice.
“Yes, don’t worry.” Donna nodded at Billy. “Since I’m going to be wearing this sucker for a long time, I want my big boy’s name on it.”
Each, in turn—Kate steadying Billy’s hand—autographed the cast gently, and in silence. There was, indeed, a sense of ritual about the “signing ceremony” as Donna called it.
Marlene placed the Magic Marker on the bedside table, and Donna nodded again. “Good.” She sounded pleased as she focused on Kate. “Mrs. Kennedy, they won’t tell me when I can go home. Billy goes back to school on Monday. Can you keep him till then?”
Even if the child weren’t there, looking up at Kate with those big blue eyes, she’d have said yes.
“I’ll try to make other arrangements for next week.” Donna’s voice broke.
“No.” Billy moved from his mother’s bed rail to Kate’s side. “Why can’t you come home, Mommy?”
Kate put her arm around Billy. “Your mommy will be coming home soon, darling. You’ll stay with me until she does.”
“Promise?” Billy asked, eyes filling with tears.
“I promise.” And now your ersatz grandmother is going to interrogate your bedridden mother. Nice family values, Kate.
“Billy, why don’t you and I go down to the lobby? I saw an ambulance in the gift shop that I want to show you.” Marlene sounded confident her bribe would work.
“I like frucks, not ambulances.” Billy wasn’t so easily bribed. “And I want to stay with my mommy.”
“This one has a really loud siren.” Marlene upped the ante.
“Go ahead, Billy,” Donna said. “Mrs. Kennedy and I have some stuff to sort out.”
When they’d gone, Kate wasted no time. She had to know. “In your apartment yesterday, I noticed cut-up pieces of a negative in your wastebasket.”
“Doing a little snooping, were you?” Donna looked and sounded defiant.
“Someone murdered Whitey and Carl. Photographs showing elephant abuse could have been the motive for Whitey’s death and, indirectly, for Carl’s. So, yes, I snooped.”
“As fond as you are of my boy, Mrs. Kennedy, it must be tough believing his mother’s a murderer.”
Kate met and held Donna’s cold, dark eyes. “I’m praying she’s not.”
Donna blinked first. “While you were rummaging around my apartment did you find a clipping from the New York Times?”
It was Kate’s turn to blink; she could feel her face flush. “Were you surprised I read the Times, Mrs. Kennedy? Or just surprised I wanted to learn more about the nationwide abuse of circus animals?”
Kate’s stomach burned. “I think you wanted to discover how much the Times writer knew about elephant abuse in the Cunningham Circus.”
“Now, just a minute, young lady.”
“I’m no lady, and we both know it. But that doesn’t mean I have no morals. Women like you get that mixed up, Mrs. Kennedy.” Donna’s voice was both hoarse and harsh.
Kate, stunned into silence, backed away from the bed.
“Did it ever occur to you that I wanted to help the Times editor expose Sean Cunningham’s dirty little secret? Or that I wanted to force Sean to admit some slime ball in our circus was abusing Edgar? Or that, for God’s sake, I was the one who posed the elephants for Freddie’s photo?”
Twenty-Seven
If Marlene asked one more time what was wrong, a question Kate couldn’t even begin to answer with Donna’s son clutching her hand, she’d scream.
“Ixnay.” She tried Pig Latin, hoping Marlene might remember the word from a language they’d learned as pre-teens, used briefly—so proud to have broken Kate’s mother and father’s secret code that had shielded the girls from unsuitable adult conversation—and then, for the most part, had forgotten.
Would she ever get out of this lobby? Or was she damned to pace its tile floor like the dead paced the deck on Charon’s ferry as they crossed the river Styx? Would Broward General Hospital become her own personal purgatory? Kate, the penitent, confessed. Mea culpa, mea culpa: Guilty as Donna charged. She was a judgmental old snob. How much time would she have to serve?
Nick Carbone, leaning heavily on a cane, limped toward them.
“Good God, Kate, you’re pale as a corpse. And who the hell is ixnay?” Marlene sounded frightened. “South Florida is still part of America, you don’t have to talk to Carbone if you don’t want to.”
“Not who. What.” With her free hand, Kate rubbed her forehead, sweaty despite the air-conditioning. “Ixnay is Pig Latin for nix.”
Marlene just stared at her.
Kate released Billy’s hand. “Nick is the least of my problems. Take Billy to the car. Let him play with his new ambulance. I’ll meet you there.”
Nick Carbone was close enough to touch.
She held her head high, nodded in Nick’s direction, then whispered one final order to Marlene. “Please go. I can’t answer any questions now. Not yours. Not his. Not even my own. Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of Nick.”
“You will, huh?” Nothing wrong with the detective’s hearing.
Minus a minor, Kate couldn’t be sure, but Nick had to look worse than she did. Murder had an aging effect, especially for those trying to catch a killer. Her guilt-filled head found room to pity her fellow investigator.
“What can I do for you, Nick?” Pleasant. Polite. Congenial.
“For starters, you can tell me why you tampered with evidence in Donna Viera’s apartment.”
Not purgatory. Hell. No reprieve. The souls in purgatory eventually got out. In hell, the sentence, eternal damnation, had no possibility of parole. “Why would you say a thing like that?” Kate tried a defensive tactic…and not a very good one.
“Please drop by the police station this afternoon, Kate.” Pleasant. Polite. Congenial.
“Why?” She came across as much bolder than she felt.
“To have your fingerprints taken. We’d like to see if they match the prints on several pieces of a negative found in the Viera apartment.”
“Well, well, hello, Mrs. Kennedy.” Sean Cunningham had slithered up to them unnoticed. Freshly bathed and dressed in a white shirt and crisp khakis, the man still appeared rancid.
“Fancy running into you, Kate. Visiting our Donna, are you?” Linda, in fiery red Capri pants and a matching tube top, carried a huge bouquet of orchids and a small doll dressed in a replica of Donna’s blue drum majorette costume. She tossed her blonde curls, turned away from Kate, and pointed a red-tipped finger at Nick’s cane. “Are you a patient here too, Detective?”
“Just leaving.” Nick sounded strained, and Kate could see he was in pain. “Since you and I have an appointment at six, Mrs. Rutledge, I’ll see you later.”
“Now I trust you won’t be keeping Linda at the police station too long, Detective.” Sean favored Carbone with his broad clown smile. “I’m holding a wee wake for Whitey tonight at seven, and I wouldn’t want one of the loves of his life to be missing it.”
“At your place?” Nick asked. “I might drop by.”
Sean nodded, his smile shrinking to a grimace.
As Nick hobbled off, he almost bumped into Suzanna and Olivia Jordan, who’d just arrived.
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. Broward General Hospital’s lobby: crossroads of murder suspects. How Kate would love to know which of the four had electrocuted Whitey, planted the smoke bombs, and shot Carl and Freddie.
Sean seemed the most obvious candidate for the last two murders. He’d been in the circus for the entire matinee and only exited after the firemen had discovered Carl’s body.
Though a prime suspect for Whitey’s murder, Linda seemed to be out of contention for the flea market murders. She’d been in the corridor with Marlene when the smoke bombs were planted in the circus. Of course, she could have had an accomplice. Why would an innocent woman have lied to Marlene about her past?
Suzanna had never returned to the corridor after her scene with Freddie. Where had she been? Planting smoke bombs? Shooting Carl and Freddie? Kate appraised Suzanna’s cool beauty as she greeted Sean and Linda, who were getting visitors’ passes at the reception desk. Was Mama Jordan capable of triple murder? To protect her daughter from Whitey? From Freddie’s blackmail? And could Suzanna and Whitey have been involved? Not unlikely with this bunch. The man seemed to have slept his way through the corridor. “Your kind always thinks the worst of my kind.” Donna’s haunting words stung anew. Kate flushed, wanted to flee.
“You’re leaving, Mrs. Kennedy?” Olivia asked in her soft voice, with its perfect diction.
Kate nodded. “Yes, Marlene and Billy are waiting outside.”
“It’s still only two visitors at a time,” the receptionist said.
“First come, first served,” Linda said. “Let’s go see the patient, Sean.”
The clown reached into his shirt pocket and handed Kate a card. “My address. I’d like you and Marlene to join us for Whitey’s wake. After all, you’re part of our corridor family now.”
Kate hoped her shiver didn’t show. Repulsed or not, she wouldn’t miss this wake if her life depended on it. She took the card. “Thanks. I’ll be there.”
Sean winked. “I knew you’d come.” Before Kate could process his words, he spun around and stepped into the elevator, patting Linda’s backside.
Olivia sighed. “He’s a pig, Mrs. Kennedy. “If Mom and I didn’t need the corridor to make a decent living, I’d slit him up the middle, roast him on a spit, and feed him to the tigers.”
Kate believed her. She also believed Olivia would have been more than capable of planting smoke bombs, shooting Carl and Freddie, and then returning to the corridor, pretending to be all upset by Freddie’s blackmail letter. Disarming and shrewd. A dangerous combination.
And, unlike her mother, Olivia was hefty enough to have tossed Freddie’s body into the feed bin.
The fresh air cleared Kate’s head. She walked briskly through the parking area, thinking Marlene must be ready to retire from babysitting.
As she drew closer to the Chevy convertible she noticed an old maroon car—a Ford, she thought—a row over. It looked a lot like the one that had appeared to be tailing them earlier. Strange. Had one of the four suspects arrived in that car? Maybe Marlene had spotted the driver.
Billy and Marlene were nowhere to be found. Kate felt a surge of panic, starting in her stomach and rising to her heart. Then she heard laughter.
“Kate!�
� Marlene called. “Over here.”
Her sister-in-law’s head popped up from behind an SUV the size of a New York City studio apartment “We’re playing hide and seek.”
Kate walked around the vehicle’s rear end. Marlene crouched behind the front wheel, wide enough to cover her considerable girth.
“Where’s Billy?”
Marlene gave her one of those “how dumb can you be” looks. “If I’m hiding, Kate, obviously, he’s seeking.” Panic took control. Kate screamed. “What’s wrong with you, Marlene? There’s a killer loose in the hospital, and you don’t know where Billy is?”
“I found you, Marlene.” Billy’s head poked around the front of the car.
Five minutes later, Kate had apologized for overreacting, and Marlene had allowed that she might have been a tad cavalier.
Kate mentioned Donna’s four visitors and that Nick had asked her to stop by the police station, but she couldn’t share her feelings or suspicions with Billy in the backseat. The boy chattered happily, repeating Kate’s mantra. “Mommy will be home soon.”
As they approached the sharp left turn onto A1A, Marlene braked, but the car kept going, picking up speed, out of control. Missing a van full of teenagers heading south, they almost flew across the highway onto the beach and, for a brief moment, seemed to hover over the sand. Only then did Kate remember she’d forgotten to ask Marlene and Billy about the maroon car and, worse, hadn’t written down its license plate number.
The last thing she heard as her forehead hit the windshield was Billy screaming.
Twenty-Eight
“It’s only a goose egg, Marlene. For the last time. I’m not going to the emergency room.” Kate pressed an ice bag to her forehead. “If I had my way, I’d never again step foot into Broward General, Palmetto Beach Medical Center or, for that matter, the Mayo Clinic.”
Marlene and Kate were sitting on the off-white couch in Kate’s off-white living room, furnished in pale neutrals by her son Peter’s partner, a psychiatrist by profession but an interior decorator by passion. Charlie, who’d died before they could move into the apartment, had taken one look at its decor and accused Edmund of being a closet color-phobic. With the couch now sporting the Westie’s claw marks and dubious stains, Charlie would have felt more at home.