by R. J. Lee
Again, Tip and Connor locked on to each other, and Tip said, “A lecture? I can tell you, we’re not up for that.”
Ross shook his head but said nothing.
“So if we hadn’t happened to show up here like we did, you wouldn’t have come and gotten us?” Tip began. “We’re really tired of dealing with this whole thing. People still stop us on the street or come up to us at restaurants and ask us if it’s true we were out here when it happened. Sometimes, it feels like we’re part of a sideshow. It was our bad judgment in the first place that started us hanging around with Brent. Truth is, we didn’t like him very much, but we had our cold dranks together, as we called ’em, and played golf with him whenever our schedules meshed. It’s actually a relief to us that he’s out of our lives now.”
Bax noted the intensity of Tip’s last comment and chimed in. “A sentiment apparently shared by many. The man’s legacy was not one to brag about.”
“Let’s go ahead and do what they ask,” Connor said, though he didn’t sound very convinced himself. “The sooner we do it, the sooner we’ll get to our golf game and have a little time to relax.”
Reluctantly, Tip agreed after shooting Connor a sharp glance, and soon the four of them found themselves inside the great room, where Mitzy Stone greeted them all. Deedah soon emerged from the front hallway and joined them as well.
“Ah, you’re here, Mr. Rierson. Oh, and you’ve brought your captain with you, I see,” she said. “Mitzy told me you were coming out today to talk about something. Is there anything I can do to help? Do you need to use my office again?”
Bax pointed to the bar where Carlos was busy wiping off the counter, preparing for the members who would drop by throughout the day to enjoy his famous cocktails. “Right this minute we won’t require that, but if you would, please ask Carlos to head on over. And by the way, is Gerald Mansfield here? ”
“He’s out in the equipment shed, I believe,” Deedah said. “Do you want me to text him to come in, too?”
Bax nodded with a smile. “Please.”
A few minutes later, every suspect with the exception of Carly and Hollis was assembled in the great room, awaiting Bax’s instructions. He quietly surveyed the group standing around before beginning and noted faces ranging from the nervous to the quizzical. Which if any of them might crack after hearing what he had to tell them? Would the surprise element be enough to do them in?
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “we’ve just gotten back the autopsy report on Brent Ogle from the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Jackson.” He paused for effect, looking for possible changes in expressions, but there didn’t seem to be any—at least not yet.
“It seems that the cause of death for Mr. Ogle was not the blow landed to the crown of his head by the pestle. In fact, someone drowned him first, so Tommy Cantwell was mistaken in his preliminary conclusion that the blunt force trauma was the COD. Therefore, someone only thought they had murdered Brent Ogle. I can’t imagine what that person has been going through all this time. If that person is standing here among us now, I suggest that they step forward and own up to what they did. Or actually—what they thought they did.”
Even though dead silence was prevailing, the element of surprise had presumably served its purpose. There were a variety of immediate reactions from the group: a widening of eyes here, a slack jaw there. Those were unremarkable and expected. But the sharp intake of air and an involuntary jerky hand motion from one particular person drew the undivided attention of both Bax and Ross. Their investigative instincts told them that this was the suspect they needed to question further right away. Perhaps the practiced façade would finally be stripped away and the artful person behind the mask would be revealed at last.
* * *
Lyndell and Wendy had just stepped out of her Impala, parked in front of the imposing portico of Brentwood. Another car, an ancient VW Bug presumably belonging to Hollis, was already waiting for them there. Inside the house, Carly and Hollis would be waiting for them also. But Wendy was determined not to be put off by her speculations. She was stronger than that. Nevertheless, she stopped long enough to answer her father’s text about the autopsy:
shocked by COD; here at Brentwood w/ Lyndell; head over here ASAP; gut feeling it’s over.
In fact, Wendy was certain at her core that it was indeed over. In the last couple of minutes, she strongly believed that she had figured most of it out now, and she kept mentally chastising herself for being so gullible. Face value was something a certified sleuth should accept at her own peril. Her first mistake had been glossing over Carly’s emotional outbreak in front of her at Brentwood. Carly said she had invited Wendy out to confess her guilt over what she had thought about doing to her husband.
But what if instead, Carly was confessing her guilt over what she had actually gone ahead and done? Later, she might have been unable to cope with the reality of it all any longer. Perhaps she had learned her lesson well that day at the bridge table and fallen back on the art of preempting—offense through elaborate and exaggerated defense. Anything to help with her pain. Anything to give herself time to find a way out, if that were even remotely possible.
So where did Hollis fit into all of this? About that part, Wendy was less certain. Had he been lying all along about sneaking around to the hot tub merely to call out Brent Ogle? Suppose angry words and wagging fingers had not been Hollis’s intended weapon. Had he somehow managed to get hold of the pestle and do the clubbing, thinking that Brent was still alive? Or was Hollis just in too much of a hurry in the darkness to notice the difference?
He and Carly could have plotted this together out under the portico in the darkness with the threatening weather frowning down upon them. Perhaps the lightning and the thunder had stirred them to vengeful heights that had pushed them over the edge. It could have been as simple as the two of them each wanting to end Brent’s life in their own separate ways. That, Wendy decided, was profoundly ghoulish and made her want to shudder as if a tick were crawling up her spine on its way to biting her and settling in to gorge itself.
“Stay close to me, and hold on to your purse,” Wendy told Lyndell while ringing the doorbell. Even then, even after pressing that bell with her finger, she refused to turn back.
Lyndell nodded and said, “I have to admit, you have my blood pressure up. What are you expecting to have happen?”
“It’s just me and my worst-case scenarios. I guess I like to live on the edge. Isn’t that the definition of an investigative reporter? ”
“I think there are definitely some things you’re not telling me. We’ll discuss the concept of full disclosure when we get back to the office.”
Then the door opened, and Wendy was somewhat startled. It was not Carly’s maid who was standing there with a gracious smile, or even Carly, herself. Instead, Hollis was doing the honors, but that was hardly an accurate description. Far from it. There was a look of pure terror on his face—there was no other way to describe it. He swallowed hard, saying nothing. Then he sucked in air. What on earth was the matter with him? Was he ill or in pain?
Then, it all made sense when Carly stepped from behind him off to one side with a gun in her hand. It had obviously been pointed at Hollis’s back just a second before she had revealed herself.
“Walk in slowly,” Carly said to Wendy while she shot Lyndell a look of disdain. “Who is this with you?”
“This is Lyndell Slover, my editor,” Wendy told her, her pulse quickening by the second.
“I only wanted you to come. You and Hollis,” Carly continued. “But . . . you and your editor, both of you walk in slowly. Then I want the three of you to go into the parlor. Hollis, you lead the way, and none of you forget that I have a gun pointed straight at you, and I know how to use it. If Brent didn’t teach me anything else during our trial of a marriage, he taught me how to shoot. He said he wanted to be sure I knew how to dispatch any of the poisonous snakes that crawl around out here. And if anyone would know abo
ut snakes, it would be Brent.”
As the trio did as they were told with Carly walking behind them, the word reckless popped into Wendy’s head. Then, it paired itself with fearless. She was going to have to learn how to be the kind of sleuth that could distinguish between the two. At the moment, with her adrenaline coursing throughout her body, she could only hope that her failure to do so this time out would not end up being a matter of life and death.
CHAPTER 17
Having pressed Deedah’s office into service again as they had the Saturday of the murder, both Bax and Ross were behind her desk—one sitting, one standing, but both witnessing the emotional breakdown of the suspect who had been believing all this time that she had actually killed Brent Ogle. Now the dam had burst.
“I had somehow managed to deal with running into Brent Ogle at the RCC in the first place. His rudeness toward me, all the disrespect, all the taunting. I could handle all of that. Sexism is something I’ve always been prepared for. I thought I’d even made my peace with Brent being around all the time. It was enough that I’d come to Rosalie to make a success of myself where Grandpop had failed,” Mitzy was saying to them after acknowledging her genealogy. She was sitting on Deedah’s couch, dabbing at her eyes with a Kleenex.
“But when Brent told us that he’d done all that bragging to Tip Jarvis and Connor James about the clock operator being paid off and implied that it really was true, something inside me quietly snapped. I could almost hear the noise inside my head—like a tree branch falling to the ground after an ice storm. Just too much weight to bear—for it and for me. When I headed over to this very office with the rest of them, and they were all yammering about what to do with Brent, I did everything I could to rush the meeting so I could make an excuse to get outta there quick. I was in utter turmoil. I told everyone I was going to the ladies’ room, and I did head that way. But all I really wanted to do was swipe Carlos’s pestle. It just came into my head, ‘Club him with that pestle.’ I’d figured the rest of it out from there.”
“And did you swipe it?” Ross said.
“Yes,” Mitzy said. “I ran into a bit of luck, I guess. Carlos was puttering around in the supply closet when I approached the bar, so I slipped it into my pant pocket and hurried into the ladies’ locker to think things through. I stayed in there until the power went off, and then I seemed to lose my nerve for a while.”
“You were having second thoughts?” Ross continued.
“I don’t know if you could call it that. I just think the darkness startled me at first. But I can tell you the pestle was burning a hole in my pocket.”
“What did you do next?”
Mitzy had a faraway look in her eyes, and she shook her head. “I ran out of the locker room and down the hallway, right past Brent in the hot tub, and ended up under the deck halfway to the pro shop. It was so dark and I was going so fast that I doubt he could figure out what was going on.”
“That makes sense,” Ross said, squinting to picture everything in his head.
“And he was profoundly drunk, as we all know. But the longer I stood in the dark up under the deck, thinking about who and what he was, the more my resolve was strengthened again. I think some people are capable of doing anything in the dark. Things they would never consider in the light of day seem doable when the sun goes down. I’d already figured out that I’d definitely not made peace with Brent Ogle, whether I believed what he was saying about The Four-Second Game or not. I knew then that all the brave speeches I’d made to everyone about being too strong to let Brent get to me were just so much ‘playacting.’ I had the pestle now, and all I had to do was wait for the right moment to put all of us out of our misery where he was concerned.”
Mitzy paused, taking a deep breath to keep on going. Every word seemed to be taking something out of her. “Brent had gotten to me and reached deep into my soul and possessed it somehow. His nickname was The Baddest Devil of Them All, and it’s my belief that he literally became just that over time. So I was determined to put an end to him, not only for myself, but for my grandfather and my grandmother and my parents, not to mention his daily victims at the RCC. Nothing was going to stop me at that point.”
There was another pause, and Bax used it to speak up. “Tell us about finally using the pestle. No gory details. Just the logistics, please.”
There was nothing but resignation in Mitzy’s voice now. “When I’d made my final decision to go through with it, I just ran down under the deck and hurried over to the hot tub. I called out Brent’s name. But he didn’t say anything, even when I called his name again, and then—”
Bax interrupted. “He didn’t say anything to you because at that point, he was already dead.”
“I didn’t realize that until you told all of us a few minutes ago,” Mitzy said, staring down at her shoes. “It shook me down to my roots, and I guess you got what you wanted—a breakdown right here in front of you both.”
With no emotion in his voice, Ross picked up where Bax had left off. “Continue telling us the rest of your story.”
“There’s not much more to tell. I stood over him and said, ‘This is for my family, especially Coach Doughty.’ ” And I hit him as hard as I could, tossed the pestle into the tub, and followed the deck back to the pro shop. But I remember feeling very empty once I’d gotten back to my office after climbing through the window. Then I joined the rest of the group in Deedah’s office. It felt like I was under some sort of remote-control spell, though.”
“It may have felt that way to you, but you chose to do it, Miz Stone, nobody else. You just told us you had second thoughts, but you didn’t let them guide you. You risked everything you’ve accomplished here in Rosalie, I hope you realize,” Ross told her. “And at this point I have to read you your rights and tell you that you are under arrest for attempted murder and the mutilation of a dead body.”
Mitzy sat there, stoically listening to the words that resulted in Bax cuffing her. Then she said, “What’s going to happen to me?” Her voice sounded like that of a small child wandering around, lost in the woods. Her usual confidence had been manifestly drained from her. In removing Brent from the known world, she had also effectively removed herself.
“The only advice I can give you now is to get a very good lawyer,” Bax told her. “And I’m sorry you let Brent Ogle get the best of you the way you did. As it turned out, someone else had already done the dirty work before you got there. You would’ve been off the hook if you’d just taken a close look and backed off.”
Mitzy slumped her shoulders. There was no more fight left in her. “I’m glad it’s over. It’s been a trial putting up a front and lying to everybody. I’m . . . just glad it’s finally over.”
Then the text Wendy had sent about Brentwood came through on Bax’s phone.
“You stay here and take care of this,” Bax said to Ross with a sense of urgency after reading it. “Wendy wants me out at Brentwood. Call for backup.”
“What the hell’s happening? I’d like to go with you,” Ross said, picking up on the alarm in Bax’s voice.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but you need to take Miz Stone down to the station first. You can head out to Brentwood after that. Just call for backup out there right now, okay?”
* * *
Wendy couldn’t believe she’d walked into such a trap, that she’d allowed her bravado to crowd out her better judgment. At least she’d had the good sense to send that text to her father. For not the first time, however, she realized that there was a significant difference between being an investigative reporter and a law enforcement officer. As a result, she found herself sitting on Brent’s purple-and-gold–striped eyestrain of a sofa with Lyndell and Hollis, while Carly stood at a comfortable distance in front of them with her gun still pointed their way.
Carly had forced Hollis to collect all phones and purses and pile them on a table in the corner of the room, so she was in complete control of the situation. “I’m sure you all
think I’m insane or have lost my mind,” she began, “but I wanted you here for a reason. Well, not you, Miz Slover, but three witnesses are just as good as two.”
“What are we going to be witnesses to?” Wendy said. “Why are we being held hostage like this?”
“You’re not my hostages,” Carly said. “This gun is only so none of you will stop me.”
Everyone looked puzzled, but it was Wendy who spoke up. “Stop you from what? Are you going to shoot us?”
But Carly didn’t answer, and the silence that followed only filled the three people on the sofa with more anxiety.
“I do want you to help David sort out the art, Hollis,” Carly said finally. “I know you thought we were going to do it now, but that can wait.”
Hollis’s hand gestures were all over the place, pointing first in that direction, then in another. “You’re going to have to explain things better than that. I mean, I haven’t been able to think straight since you greeted me at the front door with that gun. What on earth is this all about? And what’s happened to Reeny?”
“I gave her the day off. I didn’t want her around for any of this. But to answer your question, this is about me leaving,” Carly said. “On my own terms.”
Then Wendy spoke up. “Do you want to tell us about Brent? I’ve already figured it out, you know.”
“Then I don’t have to explain it, do I?”
“As long as you have that gun pointed at us, I think you owe us that much,” Wendy said.
Carly lowered the gun slightly and began. “I’d just had enough of Brent. I was tired, very tired. You have no idea what it’s like to live with someone who’s always beating you down. He never beat me up, you understand. He never laid a hand on me. He just beat me down with his verbal abuse, with the way he made me feel about myself. It was my bad judgment to stay in the marriage, but I did it for David. If Brent and I hadn’t had him, I would have gotten a divorce a long time ago. But I stuck it out, and now I’ve paid the price.”