A Killer Kebab

by Susannah Hardy

  I didn’t think there was much she could do. She was barely moving under her own steam, and without a tool, there was no way she could break the zip tie.

  “Who did this?” I said. “Do you know? Where are Melanie and Caitlyn? Where’s the nurse?”

  Liza opened her mouth to speak, but before the words could come out, there was movement at the door. Both our heads turned.

  A woman stood there, hands on hips, lips pursed. “Well, isn’t this touching?” she said.

  My jaw dropped.

  It was Lydia Ames. Legal assistant to Jim and Ben MacNamara. Her arm was extended, her leather-gloved hand holding a pistol.

  “Lydia, thank God you’re here,” I said, playing dumb. Because I was pretty sure she wasn’t here to save us. And I was pretty sure I knew who’d been driving that boat Brenda and I had seen off in the distance, before we started.

  She rolled her eyes. “Seriously. You are the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met.”

  It almost sounded like a compliment. “What are you doing, Lydia? Why am I tied up?” Where were the cops? They could have swum here from the mainland by now.

  “Do you know how many times you’ve messed up my plans? I’ve been working on this for years. Years. And then you came along and had to start sticking your nose in. People didn’t really have to die, you know.”

  Keep her talking. Stall. It was my only hope. “What have you been working on?”

  She rolled her eyes again. “The Bloodworth Trust, you idiot.”

  “But you said you’d never seen it before Jim MacNamara . . . died.”

  “Puh-leez.” She gestured with the gun. “Do you actually think I could work in an office for that long without knowing every file and how to access it? A locked drawer is nothing when your boss leaves his keys on the desk when he goes out for a walk.”

  Liza sat up and leaned against the bed. Silently, I begged her not to try anything. She wasn’t restrained, but she was weak. And we just had to stall long enough for help to arrive.

  “So you killed Jim? How’d you manage it? Pretty clever, setting up Russ Riley to take the fall.” Flattery, though it made my stomach roll, was worth a try.

  It didn’t work.

  “Spare me,” Lydia said. “Yeah, I did it. While he was working there, I had Zach Brundage find me a weapon in your kitchen, then get Russ to touch it. When Jim went out for coffee, I called him and told him you asked him to stop by the restaurant. Zach had already let me know that the construction crew was done for the day. There was plenty of time while you were at the accountant and the hair salon. I put on the topcoat and wore it back to the office.”

  “Where you hung it up, conveniently obvious, so it would look like Ben had done it? But why?” I dreaded the answer to my next question, but it had to be asked. “Are you another heir of Elihu Bloodworth? My cousin?”

  She gave a little snort. “That trust is my inheritance. But sorry, no. We’re not related, and this”—she swung the gun in an arc from me to Liza, who was still conscious and upright, but barely—“is not some family reunion. It’s my inheritance from Jim MacNamara and his bratty kid.”

  “I don’t understand.” My jaw was tight and I could feel the kernel of a migraine forming behind my eyes.

  “I don’t suppose you would. But I put up with those two for a lot of years. The pats on the head and ‘I couldn’t appreciate you more’ and ‘If my wife calls, tell her I’m in court,’ with fifty-cent-an-hour yearly raises and no retirement?”

  “But you had a settlement from your divorce.” The headache was beginning to grow. My face and bound hands felt clammy. I was still in my coat and boots and I was sweating.

  “I knew that wouldn’t last forever. So I created my own business. I think of myself as an investment company. An investment in me. Funded with the Bloodworth Trust money, which I figure I have just as much right to as your mother and your cousin. Maybe not a legal right, but they’d never done anything to deserve it either. I saw an opportunity and I took it.”

  “You said, ‘People didn’t have to die.’ So who else have you killed?” Her next words confirmed what I’d been thinking.

  Her face hardened. “I didn’t kill anyone,” she said. “Other people knew about the trust—or thought they knew about it. Whatever they did, it’s not on me. But it is on you. You’re the one who keeps picking at the scab. Well, now you’re going to bleed.” She waved the gun again.

  The dull ache in my shoulders from the odd angle my arms were positioned throbbed in time with my accelerating pulse. Keep her talking. “Is Ben MacNamara in on this? Are you working together?”

  Lydia rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding, right? No, young James Benjamin is about to get himself disbarred for various other fraudulent activities. Just as soon as I finish you all off—and make it look like your friend Liza here did it in an attempt to keep all the Bloodworth Trust money for herself—an anonymous letter will be going to the grievance committee in Albany detailing his transgressions. I almost—almost feel sorry for him. He’s way out of his league.”

  “But what about Jim MacNamara? He must have known what you were doing.”

  “Where do you think I got the idea? Jim and I worked together, not Ben and I. For years. We were going to split the money we . . . reinvested. But then I found out Jim was cheating me—had been cheating me—because he was paying Jennifer Murdoch to keep their escapades quiet.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to keep her engaged. But she was apparently done with the confession, because she came toward me. Lydia placed the pistol close to my temple. The smell of oil, intensified by my own sharpened senses, stung my nose. My heart rate increased again. Please let help arrive. Like now.

  Lydia pulled the gun away, backed up a step, and smiled. “I’m going to regret not finishing you off myself. But it’s better this way.” She made a sudden move toward Liza, who’d managed to keep herself sitting up during this exchange, and grabbed her by the arm. Lydia yanked her to her feet and marched her over to me. My friend’s face had a sickly cast but she looked me in the eye. Not going down without a fight, she seemed to say.

  Lydia placed the gun in Liza’s limp hand, then wrapped her own gloved hands around Liza’s. I saw what was happening. Lydia was going to make it look like Liza killed me. “Where are Melanie and Caitlyn?” I said. “Are they already . . . dead?”

  Lydia repositioned Liza’s arm. The gun was now being swung slowly toward me. “Maybe,” she said. “If they’re not, it won’t be long now. As soon as Liza finishes you off, she’ll administer the final doses of poison to all four of them, that nurse included.”

  Four? For someone so focused on money, Lydia apparently couldn’t count. Movement in the doorway caught my eye. Brenda! I held still, kept my gaze trained on Lydia.

  Liza, apparently marshaling whatever strength she had left, began to struggle against Lydia to keep her from seeing Brenda. Lydia held Liza in an awkward position and was trying to keep the gun in Liza’s hand. But Liza’s arms were longer than Lydia’s and she used the additional leverage to keep Lydia off balance.

  Brenda took advantage of the struggle and raced into the room, our redheaded cavalry. She had something in her hand and made a sudden movement. Lydia cried out, stiffened, and fell to the floor, the gun dropping harmlessly from her hand. Liza staggered away, then dropped onto the bed, breath ragged, her strength spent.

  Brenda kicked the gun away from Lydia and leaned over her prostrate form. “Glad to see this thing works.” She held up a Taser and grinned.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Me too,” I said. “How long will she be out?” Brenda glanced at Liza, who nodded toward me. Brenda whipped out a bright red pocket knife and cut the plastic securing me to the chair. I brought my arms back into their natural position, which was painful enough—I was no yogi—but my wrists hurt more. The grooves in my
skin were deep and raw. But I couldn’t think about that now.

  “Don’t know,” Brenda said. “Depends on things like weight and body chemistry. Let’s not take any chances.”

  “Where are the cops? The EMTs?” I stood, then went to Liza and put my arm around her to help her to her feet.

  “Tim Arquette is down at the docks. He caught a guy acting suspicious and trying to leave. They ended up getting into it, but Tim’s got him in cuffs right now. The EMTs are tending to them, then they’ll be right up.” She put her Taser into her pocket and picked up the gun. “Go find your mom. I’ll deal with this one till the cops come.”

  I turned to Liza. “Do you want to stay here or come with me? Any idea where Melanie and Caitlyn are?”

  Liza leaned against me. “Brenda’s got this under control. I’ll . . . be no help to her. I’ll come with you.” We made our way to the door.

  The hallway stretched in both directions, with a half-dozen doors on each side. “Should we just start opening doors?”

  Liza nodded. “This is the servants’ wing, where my seasonal help stays, at least in the summer.” She coughed, then took a deep breath as she opened the first door.

  “Melanie and Caitlyn first got sick, what, like a week ago? So who’s had access to your food during that time?” The first room was empty. We moved on to the next.

  “Since it was just a few of us, I’ve been doing all the cooking. I blame myself.” She stumbled and I caught her.

  “Stop that right now,” I said. “You’re not to blame. And I’m pretty sure you haven’t been monitoring your kitchen twenty-four/seven. So who’s been working around here?” I hated the next thought that popped into my head but I said it anyway. “Steve Murdoch?”

  Liza’s expression was horrified. “No. It can’t be.”

  Unfortunately, it could. The pieces fit. Lydia Ames must have had at least one more accomplice. Steve had reasons to hate Jim MacNamara, both personally and professionally. Could he be working with Lydia? Had she played him, knowing he was vulnerable over his wife’s infidelity? Helping Lydia would be a way to stick it to both Jim and Jennifer. Steve had access to every building on this island. It would have been nothing for him to open the refrigerator door and add the poison to whatever drinks, or soup, or even salad dressings he found there, day after day.

  And I knew what Liza was thinking, without her having to say a word. She was kicking herself. She’d been taken in before by a pretty face and a tool belt, and people had paid with their lives.

  “No.” Liza shook her head. “It’s not Steve. I won’t believe it.”

  We went to the next room. “We have to consider the possibility,” I said as gently as I could. “Who else has been here?” Honestly, I didn’t want it to be Steve either. I liked him.

  “I’ve only got two people on the payroll right now. They don’t stay over. They come from the mainland every day and go home before it gets dark.” The next room was also empty.

  “Who are they?” I pressed. Why weren’t we finding Melanie? She and Caitlyn could be anywhere in this place. My heart rate, which had slowed to somewhere approaching normal when we left Lydia in Brenda’s capable hands, was ticking up again. This was taking too long. Lydia had said that the fatal doses had not been administered. But just like a Taser, poison must affect different people in different ways. My mother and her assistant might already be dead.

  “Brandy Gates cleans for me.”

  Dolly’s daughter. Russ Riley’s sister. Oh no. This would kill Dolly. It would kill me. I trusted Brandy. We opened another door.

  “And the only other one is Pru. Prudence Patton. This was her first summer with me. I kept her on to help with closing up.”

  Another empty room. Prudence Patton. The name jogged something in my memory, though I was fairly certain I’d never heard it before. Liza was clearly exhausted, moving slower and slower, and leaning on me more and more as we approached the last door on this side of the hall.

  “What does Prudence look like?”

  “Can we stop, for just a second?” We paused. “Mid-twenties. Tall. Slim. Long blond hair. Not a native, but she’s living near Bonaparte Bay somewhere now.”

  I used Liza’s resting time to paint a mental picture of the woman and pair it with the name. Prudence Patton. I knew a woman who looked like just like that. Except she called herself Piper Preston.

  “What do you know about her?” I asked. “Can you go on?”

  By way of answer to my second question, she put her hand on the doorknob. “Not much. But she gave Angela Wainwright as a reference.”

  Angela Wainwright. The door swung open and we entered. This room was a little larger than the ones we’d been in, containing three oak dressers and three narrow beds.

  In each of the beds lay a figure. None of them were moving.

  I went to Melanie first. Her platinum blond hair was unmistakable against the white linen of the pillow. “Melanie? Melanie, it’s me. Can you hear me?” I grabbed her wrist. She had a pulse. I held my hand a couple of inches from her mouth. She was breathing. Her bare face was still, though. Even though she was only just short of sixty, without her customary heavy makeup, she looked . . . old. Small. Fragile. She’d lost weight she didn’t need to lose and was now painfully thin. My heart swelled. In spite of everything she’d put me through, abandoning me when I was just out of high school, and generally annoying me every day since she’d been back in my life, she was still my mother. And always would be. I raised her bony hand to my lips and gave it a soft kiss before laying it back under the covers. “Help’s on the way,” I said. She gave a tiny nod.

  Caitlyn Black, my mother’s joined-at-the-hip assistant, lay in the center bed. Liza looked at me over Caitlyn’s head. “She’s alive,” Liza said.

  Caitlyn shifted. “Where’s my phone?” she said thickly. “I need my phone.” I hated to tell her, so I didn’t, that she and Melanie would be putting their business and social engagements on hold until they recovered, so her phone wouldn’t do her any good. But that was Caitlyn. Ever efficient, even though she was barely conscious.

  Liza and I looked at each other. There was a third bed in the room, and it was occupied. Lydia must have drugged and/or poisoned the nurse as well. But Lydia had said she was going to finish off four people after she made it look like Liza had killed me. There were only three here.

  I stared at the figure in the third bed.

  No. No, no, no, no. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t even home from Greece yet. I raced toward her. Liza must have been right behind me, because she appeared at my side.

  The figure in the bed had her back to me. But I’d recognize that dark head anywhere, anytime. I’d given birth to it, in a smaller version. Tears spilled out of my eyes as I sat on the edge of the mattress and put my hand on the shoulder, giving it a little caress. “Callista,” I whispered. “Honey, I’m here.”

  She rolled toward me. “Mommy,” she said groggily. “Surprise.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  It took another ten minutes for the EMTs to reach the room in the servants’ hall. Liza insisted on going to find them, despite the fact that she was also quite ill, because she knew the castle better than anyone and was unlikely to get lost.

  Sure enough, when Bill Belanger from the Bonaparte Bay Volunteer Fire Department finally came through the door, he was all apologies. “We didn’t know where to find you,” he explained. “This place is huge.”

  Liza dropped into a chair. She was clearly spent. “The police are here, with reinforcements,” she said then tipped her head back and waited her turn.

  Bill started barking orders to the two other members of his team and they set to work. I held Cal’s clammy hand. My daughter was here. She was safe. And I thought she was going to be okay.

  Relief lifted the fog from my mind as the EMTs worked. Angela Wainwright. Piper Preston, or Prudence
Patton, or whatever her real name was. Piper had worked for both Angela Wainwright and Franco Riccardi. And now it was clear she had also been working for Lydia Ames and probably Ben MacNamara too. Piper was the link, the unlikely connection between the Bloodworth Trust and the oldest known Thousand Island dressing recipe. Whether she knew that or not was anyone’s guess.

  Though it pained me to do so, I pulled out my cell phone, set it on my knee so I wouldn’t have to drop Cal’s hand, and dialed one-handed.

  “Hawthorne,” a brusque voice said.

  “This is Georgie Nikolopatos. You need to go pick up Zach Brundage and Piper Preston. She also calls herself Prudence Patton. Tim Arquette from the BBPD has Lydia Ames here. She killed Jim MacNamara. And you might want to bring in Angela Wainwright. I’m not sure how deeply she’s involved, but Ben MacNamara was behind the attacks on Franco Riccardi and me, at the very least.”

  There was a silence on the other end of the line. “You must have been completing your detective training on the down low,” he finally said. “Sorry we don’t have any openings on the force right now.”

  Man, he was annoying. I should have called, well, anybody but him.

  “But I’ll look into it. Thanks for the tips.” He rang off.

  * * *

  Two days later, I plunked myself into an orange pleather chair in the family lounge at Bonaparte Bay’s small hospital. Liza and Melanie, who were being discharged today, sat across from me as we waited for the final paperwork to process. Cal and Caitlyn, being younger and generally more resilient, were back at the Bonaparte House already, having been let go yesterday.

  The nurse had been found in a separate room, groggy but alive, zip-tied to a chair as I had been. Dr. Phelps promised that none of the five women would have any lasting effects from their poisonings or their ordeal.

  “So what happened?” Melanie demanded. “I’m getting very tired of this hospital. And there wasn’t even enough time to get another camera crew on-site to make it worthwhile.” Last time she’d been here, after she’d been shot, her daytime drama had written a special storyline for her and filmed on location. She was probably up for a Daytime Emmy for her performance. She’d never won yet, but maybe this was her year.