by Alice Orr
Maybe Taylor should have been shocked to see the man she had thought to be her friend and ally unmasked as the worst kind of betrayer. Reading the pages of that journal seemed to have used up all the shock she had in her. At the moment, she was feeling mostly numb. She wasn’t even particularly surprised when Early shoved the garage door aside to reveal a late-model dark sedan with black-tinted window glass.
* * *
DES VERY SELDOM BROKE the speed limit in town. There were too many people on the streets. He had to remind himself of that this morning as he steered the Jeep toward Winona Starling’s. His friend Landon had called because he knew of Des’s interest in Lewt Walgreen aka Paul Bissett. When Landon showed up this morning for his tour on the day shift, he found out that Walgreen/Bissett was no longer in custody. He had pulled the oldest scam in jail-house history and got away with it. He was so mild-mannered and cooperative that nobody pegged him as a runner. When he pretended he was sick, the guard believed him. On the way to see a doctor, Walgreen bolted and was gone. Now, the cops were after him, and not just for the jailbreak. He was accused of assault as well, against Early Rhinelander, of all people. Lewt went straight from the jail to Elizabeth Street and laid low there till Early came out. Then Lewt followed Early and attacked him. That’s what the police report said, anyway.
As if that wasn’t bad enough for Bissett, Santos was after him for questioning about the murders of April Jane and Violetta. The detective seemed to think Bissett could be the killer, and that he’d tried to do the same to Early. According to Landon, Santos’s theory was that Bissett was after the family money. Before he could resurface to claim his inheritance, he had to cover his tracks where the Stormley fire was concerned. First he broke into Taylor’s room at the guesthouse, either looking for any evidence she might have, or to kill her. April Jane surprised him in the act, and there was a struggle. April ended up dead.
As for Violetta, she’d seen a lot more at Stormley than she ever let on. Even Des had said that. Bissett could have known about her bad heart from the old days and certainly about her superstitious nature. He shows up at her house, like a zombie returned from the dead. In case that wasn’t scary enough to do the trick, he threw in some violence. He tore up her house and terrorized her till she keeled over. Whoever did that had murdered her as surely as if he’d used a knife or a gun. Santos had a hunch Bissett was the culprit. Then he went after Early Rhinelander, because he was now just about the only one left from the Stormley fire days. Desiree, Pearl, Netta and Violetta were all dead. That left Early—and one other person. Des was on his way to Taylor before Landon had finished what he was saying.
He slammed on the brakes in front of the Starlings’ and jumped out of the Jeep. He whipped the door shut so fast behind him that it didn’t catch and bounced open again. Des didn’t stop to shut it. He was already halfway to the veranda steps. He didn’t stop to knock on the door, either. He barged straight into the house, fully expecting Winona to waylay him at any moment with a stern-faced order to vacate the premises. He called Taylor’s name out loudly anyway, but there was no answer. After charging through the parlor and dining room and looking out onto the back veranda, he began to suspect that the house was empty. The door across the central hallway from the living room was locked. As Des recalled, that was Winona’s office. He pounded on the door, but there was no answer there, either.
He was about to head upstairs when he heard Jethro’s Corvette tear into the driveway outside and screech to a stop. Des met Jethro in the hallway. He was on his way from the back door to the stairs at a near run. His gawky body appeared even more awkward than usual at that pace, like loosely connected slats of bone trying to jangle themselves apart. Des grabbed Jethro’s arm as he was about to barrel past.
“Where is everybody?” Des asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve been out.” Jethro tried to jerk himself out of Des’s grip.
“Was Taylor here when you left?” Des asked. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“Don’t talk to me about her.” Jethro jerked all the harder. “She’s the reason I’m in this fix. I’m sure of it.”
“What fix is that?” Des kept a tight lock on Jethro’s arm.
“You’ve got to let me go. I have to get to my room.”
Des heard the desperation in Jethro’s voice and saw it in his eyes. This loony-bird appeared to have flown clear around the bend. Maybe Des could take advantage of that. He had to do whatever he could to find Taylor and make sure she was safe.
“If you don’t let me go to my room, my bad luck’s going to catch up with me for sure,” Jethro was saying. He was more frantic than ever.
“I’ll let you go to your room when you tell me what I need to know.”
“You don’t understand,” Jethro pleaded. “Madame Leopold says my good luck isn’t with me today. I have to stay in my room till it comes back.”
Des wanted to shout at Jethro to stop his raving, but he guessed that wouldn’t be a smart move. He forced himself to stay calm. “Madame Leopold is right,” he said. “You need to get to your room as fast as you can, and I’m going to let you do just that as soon as you tell me what you know about Taylor.”
“She’s what took my luck away. If we hadn’t done what we did to her, none of this would have happened. Everything’s gone wrong ever since.” Jethro was obviously beside himself, bobbing wildly back and forth against the restraint of Des’s hold on him. “We shouldn’t have done it. We shouldn’t have.”
“What shouldn’t you have done?” It took all of Des’s strength to maintain control of himself. Otherwise, he might spook Jethro so far out there’d be no chance of communicating with him.
“We shouldn’t have messed with her head like that. Look what it did to me. All those experiments and treatments—she used to try them out on me. Look how I ended up.” A sob rattled in Jethro’s throat. He went suddenly limp and slid to the floor. “Are you talking about your mother? Did Winona do these treatments on you?”
Jethro nodded. His shoulders shook with sobbing.
“And she did something like that to Taylor too?”
Jethro nodded again. He crawled toward the wall beneath the staircase with Des still gripping his arm.
“Do you think Taylor might be with Winona now?” Des asked.
Jethro mumbled something choked and unintelligible as he backed himself against the wall.
“What was that, Jethro?”
Des crouched down and leaned close. Jethro was racked with sobs now, but Des was able to make out, “And Early, too.”
“Where would they have taken her?”
Jethro shook his head loosely from side to side, like a balloon on a stick. “I don’t know,” he sobbed.
“Where do you think they would take her?” Des was beginning to feel as desperate as Jethro looked and sounded. “Just make a guess for me and I’ll let you go so you can get to your room. You’ll be safe there. All you have to do is tell me where Winona and Early could have taken Taylor.”
The mention of safety had stopped Jethro’s bobbing for a moment, though he was still trembling violently. He seemed to be trying to think of an answer. It was a long, torturous moment before he spoke. “They’d take her back where it all started.”
Des dropped Jethro’s arm. “Stormley,” Des said. He was down the corridor and out the front door before Jethro made it to the bottom of the stairs, crawling on his hands and knees toward the safety he’d been promised.
* * *
TAYLOR KNEW what kind of trouble she was in. The gun appearing in Winona’s hand only added to her sense of peril. Still, she kept herself calm and alert to any opportunity for escape. Then she saw Early take two cans of gasoline out of the trunk of the sedan and carry them toward the tall brick house, and panic seized her. He was going to set Stormley on fire and repeat the history of twenty-four years ago, only Taylor would be the victim this time. They had even set her up to look like the kind of nut who would start such
a fire herself. It all fit together now—the talk about how emotionally disturbed she’d supposedly been as a child, her own agitated behavior these past few days, especially yesterday.
“What did you have to do with my nearly driving myself into the ocean?” Taylor asked over the tight knot of terror in her throat.
She and Winona were standing just inside the front door of Stormley, waiting for Early to join them. He was on the path approaching the house, hurrying along as huge raindrops pelted him. Taylor could smell the sharp odor of gasoline overwhelming the softer scent of lime trees on the thrashing wind. Winona smiled her scarlet smile. She had applied makeup in the car’s visor mirror on the way here from Elizabeth Street. Along with application of that cosmetic facade, her icy composure had returned, erasing all sign of her previous frenzy when she first heard Early had been injured.
“A simple matter of posthypnotic suggestion, my dear,” she said. “You were, one might say, programmed to act should you at any time begin to suspect either Early or myself of anything at all incriminating. Really quite elementary for a practitioner of my talents.”
“Do you consider murder elementary?”
“One does what is necessary,” Winona said without so much as a flicker of disturbance to her facade. “Right now it is necessary for you to climb those stairs toward your destiny.”
Winona indicated the staircase to the second floor. She held the smooth steel gun with such confidence that there could be little doubt she knew how to use it. The chill in her black-rimmed eyes gave every indication that she would. Taylor began to climb the stairs as she’d been told. With each step she forced her fear into further submission until she was calm and alert once more.
“Did you do the killings?” she asked, stopping to face Winona, who was on the step below Taylor.
“Of course not, my dear. Miss Cooney was what you might call an accident. Jethro was merely trying to search your room. The rest was due to her overzealousness.”
“How did you even know I was here in Key West?”
Winona laughed briefly. “You do underestimate us. Early has been keeping very close tabs on you since your aunt passed on. He knew of your impromptu travel plans almost as soon as you had made them. He alerted us to expect you, and I had Jethro at the airport to follow you from the instant of your arrival.”
“In the dark sedan?”
“Precisely. Now, we must move on, child.”
Winona motioned with the gun for Taylor to resume climbing. Early had come through the door below. He set the gas cans down long enough to wipe the rain from his face and slick back what hair he had from his shining, wet scalp. Winona motioned again. Taylor had no choice but to continue climbing. She didn’t speak again until they had reached the second-floor landing and were walking toward the door of what had once been her mother’s bedroom. Taylor had kept herself thinking clearly every step of the way. As Winona had said, Taylor would do what was necessary. She was only waiting for the opportunity.
She paused in front of the door. “What about Violetta?” she asked.
“Early was in charge of that,” Winona said. “He had followed you here immediately on the next flight. He knew of Violetta’s unfortunate health problems. If that hadn’t been sufficient to remove her, however, he was prepared to employ more direct measures.”
“You seem to have thought of everything.”
“I pride myself upon my thoroughness, my dear.”
Winona reached for the doorknob. In that moment, Taylor recognized her opportunity. “Maybe you’re not quite as thorough as you thought,” she said, hoping to widen the opportunity even more.
Winona had turned the knob and pushed the door open. She hesitated only a second, but that was long enough for Taylor to act. She didn’t grab the gun. Winona had it pointed directly at Taylor and might shoot her on impulse. Instead, Taylor reached down and grabbed a firm handful of the white fabric of Winona’s usual diaphanous costume. Taylor yanked hard and Winona’s feet went out from under her. The gun clattered across the hallway floor. Winona had dropped it when she fell. Taylor would have gone after it, but she heard Early coming. He was already on his way up the stairs in response to Winona’s scream.
Taylor dashed into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her, turning the latch to lock herself in. She knew this was only a temporary reprieve. There could be no real safety for her in this room, any more than there had been for her mother. Early was already shaking the locked door as Taylor raised the window onto the roof and crawled out. She shut it again behind her to slow him down a bit more. She glanced back through the pane to see the door splinter and Early come blasting into the room over the toppling door. The image that flashed next across her vision was partly past, partly present. She saw once again the man standing above her mother on the floor. He was poised to strike, as he had been all those years ago. This time he looked up toward the window, probably in response to Taylor’s childhood screams. She saw his face. It was Early Rhinelander.
Her past vision merged with the present. She saw the same murderous glint in Early’s eyes that she’d seen back then, only he had a gun in his hand this time—pointed straight at her. Then something happened that had nothing to do with that past image. Someone else was in Desiree’s room, striking Early on the arm, struggling with him for the gun in an attack so fierce it made up for the attacker’s smaller stature. Lewt Walgreen wrestled his opponent to the floor and disarmed him. Except that he wasn’t Lewt Walgreen now. He was Paul Bissett, come to the rescue of his family as he could not do all those years ago. Taylor’s heart had a moment to leap with overwhelming joy before she smelled the smoke.
* * *
DES DIDN’T WANT to believe this could be happening again. He was running toward the flaming house the same way he had as a boy. He gulped in smoke that ravaged his lungs, but he kept on running. Winona had left the front door open as she fled with the gas can still in her hand. The storm wind gusted into the house and lashed the flames to even greater fury. Des looked up to the second-story windows. No flames there yet. He had no certain idea where Taylor might be, but he guessed that she was up there.
“Taylor,” he cried. There was no doubt it was her name engraved on his heart this time.
He couldn’t get to her from here. The flames were blocking the front door. He was headed around the side of the house when he heard her voice.
“Des, I’m up here,” Taylor shouted from the roof. “I can get out the back way. Save the house if you can.”
“What about Rhinelander?” Des shouted back. “Where is he?”
“My father’s taken care of him.”
Des hesitated. “I’m coming up there.”
“No,” Taylor shouted even louder. “I can get out on my own. Please, save Stormley.”
Des hesitated only a moment more, long enough to remember how Netta, in fear of another devastating blaze, had planted giant fire extinguishers all over the house, including under the front veranda. Then, he did what Taylor asked, what he had not been able to do as a boy—he saved Stormley for both of them.
* * *
TWO WEEKS LATER, Taylor and Des stood arm in arm under the lime trees watching the workmen hurry in and out, putting the finishing touches on their repairs to the fairly minor damage that had been done to Stormley. Netta’s final wishes would be fulfilled all the same. She had feared her sister would sell Stormley. That was why Netta had asked Des to do everything in his power to block a sale. She had even left him enough money to buy the place himself if he had to.
Paul Bissett was inside, where he had been every day since the fire, personally directing the job. His navy hearing was still pending, but it was anticipated that he would get off with probation, especially since Armand Santos would be testifying on his behalf. The charges of assault against Early Rhinelander would of course be dismissed, even though Paul had actually been guilty of that attack. He had done it to protect Taylor. He had broken out of jail for exactly that purpose after E
arly had inadvertently tipped him off about he and Winona’s plans for Taylor. All of which would be taken into consideration by the judge, along with the fact that Early was the one in jail now.
An inquiry had already determined that Winona Starling and Early, who turned out to be her brother, had conspired to murder Desiree Bissett to keep her from going to the authorities with her suspicions about Winona’s therapy practices. There was a possibility that they also had something to do with Netta Bissett’s death, and Pearl’s as well. Slow poisoning with Winona’s herbal teas was suspected. The aunts had apparently been quarreling over Winona, whether she was actually a healer or something much more sinister, for the year before Pearl died. All of that was still under investigation. Meanwhile, Winona and Early were in jail, where they were certain to spend the rest of their lives. Jethro was in another kind of custody, getting some real therapy at last.
“Would you like to be married here?” Des asked, pulling Taylor even closer to him.
She looked up at him, marveling as she knew she always would at the way the brilliant Key West sun touched the gold in his tousled hair. She trusted him now as she had never trusted anyone in her life. So, she could love him as well. There would be no more nightmares as long as she slept in her true love’s arms.
“Yes,” was all she said.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8375-6
Key West Heat
Copyright © 1995 by Alice Orr