“Annie, what’s going on?” Bessie sounded more than a little frightened. “Was that my antique pitcher I heard smashing?” Bessie’s hearing was keener than her daughter’s, Annie marvelled.
“I don’t know. Marie? Marie, are you alright?”
Everyone hushed their whispers at Annie’s question. She got no reply, only the sound of silence and her own heart beating in her chest.
“Rob, get the lights.” Annie barked out the order even as she made her way around the table. A moment later the electric lights flickered on, causing everyone in the room to squint and cover their eyes. Annie wasn’t exactly surprised to find Marie’s chair empty, after all, she hadn’t responded when Annie had called out. Annie was a little shocked and saddened to see that Bessie’s guess about her antique ceramic pitcher was right. The decorative piece lay in fragments on the floor. It must have been knocked over when Marie stood up, Annie guessed.
“Where’s Marie?” Bessie sounded surprised and a little hurt to find that the psychic was missing.
“And where’s the package?” Rob asked, pointing to the empty space where the package should have been.
Annie and Rob both came to the same conclusion at once. He opened the door to the dining room, which had inexplicably slammed shut during the seance, and stepped into the darkened hallway. Annie darted out after him.
“Wait!” she insisted. “Let me check her room. Why don’t you go and tell Rory to keep an eye out for her. If she tries to leave the plantation, he can stop her.”
Rob agreed reluctantly to her suggestion. Annie felt her way down the hallway, flipping on lights as she went so that she could see. By the time she’d climbed the stairs and reached Marie’s room, she had convinced herself that the woman would be gone, completely vanished. She put her ear to the woman’s door, and listened. She could just make out the sound of muffled sobs.
Annie kept a master key to every door in the house. She pulled her keys from her pocket and selected it now, opening the door as quietly and as quickly as she could. She wasn’t quite prepared for what she found, and for a moment, she didn’t quite know what to say.
Marie had packed her bags and was obviously ready to leave. She was also on her knees on the floor, cradling the wooden jewelry box, its cardboard box ripped to pieces all around her. Bits of foam peanuts drifted in the air and clung to Marie’s oversized skirt, which had a large tear in it. The woman turned to look at Annie. Her face was streaked with tears, and she clutched the box defensively.
“Marie, are you alright?” Annie felt lame, but it was the only thing that she could think to ask.
“What do you think? Do I look alright?” Marie spat the words at Annie. She glanced at her bags, and Annie realized that she’d almost let the woman slip away.
“Why did you take the box?” It was a command as much as it was a question, and Annie’s hand went out instinctively, asking for Marie to hand it over.
Marie suddenly seemed more aware of the situation, of her disheveled state, and of Annie’s insistence on having the jewelry box that Lou Ross had presumably meant for his mother to have. “I told you from day one that you should have had this place cleansed of the negative spirits.” She rose to her feet. “I’m not through with this,” she said simply, and Annie realized that she meant the box.
Annie realized with sudden clarity that she was in the presence of someone who was not in her right mind. “Marie, why don’t you come downstairs and let me fix you up some tea. You’ve been through a lot, it seems.”
Marie laughed. “You don’t know the half of it!” She darted her eyes around the room, then scuttled over to her bags and snatched them up with one hand, the other still gripping the jewelry box tightly. “I’ll be checking out now, Mrs. Richards,” she said coolly, “I believe you have my credit card details--please charge my card accordingly.”
Annie was blocking the door, but she stepped backwards just enough for Marie to pass. When the woman came closer, Annie held out her hand again. “The police are going to need that, Marie.” Annie glanced down the hallway, hoping to see Rob or Rory, but she realized that they’d be watching Marie’s car, waiting for her to make her escape.
Marie stopped, frozen in her tracks for a long moment. She cocked her head to one side and seemed to be listening to a voice that only she could hear. Goosebumps slipped down Annie’s spine as Marie broke into a widening grin. “I’m not falling for that one. I’m getting what belongs to me, Lou Ross, and no one is going to stop me.”
One minute Annie was tensed, waiting for Marie to make a move. The next, she was falling backwards, her feet swept out from underneath her by one of Marie’s bags. As the world spun backwards, Annie caught a glimpse of black fabric billowing out behind a running Marie, then all hell broke loose.
Fortunately for Annie, Marie’s bag managed to make its way underneath her backside as she fell, breaking her fall somewhat and lessening what surely would have otherwise been a very painful fall. Unfortunately, it felt--and smelled--as though the bag was full of bottles of essential oils. Annie slipped as she tried to rise, and discovered an oily puddle of liquid oozing out of the bag. She pulled herself up along the wall and took off running after Marie, slipping only for the first few steps.
Before she’d reached the landing at the top of the stairs, she heard the barking, then the growling, and by the time she’d hit the first step, she heard the screaming.
Despite the wailing cries of one seriously deranged psychic, the scene could have been a funny one. Karma, small as he was, had the woman cornered in the parlour, her billowing skirt now tangled tight in his puppy teeth. The dog, which only weighed about twenty pounds, according to Dr. Fisher, had managed to stop the terrified woman in her tracks. Before Annie could reach the bottom of the stairs, Devon came tearing onto the scene, stumbling to a stop as he realized that his puppy had Marie’s skirt in his jaws.
“Oh, crap, Mom, I’m so sorry! Let me put him outside!” Devon reached for the dog, but Annie stopped him.
“No!” She glanced out the window beside the front door and saw blue lights. “Go outside and tell Delbert or whoever it is to come in here and bring some handcuffs.”
Devon bolted back through the kitchen, and Annie marched over to Marie. She snatched the jewelry box from the woman’s shaking hands. Despite everything that had just happened, Annie was surprised to find that she didn’t feel angry at Marie. In fact, when she saw that the woman’s glasses had come off and were lying on the floor, Annie couldn’t help but pick them up and place them in her now empty hands.
Annie reached down and calmed the dog, who now sat obediently at her feet. He didn’t drop Marie’s skirt, but at least he’d stopped the barking. He still let out a brave little growl every few seconds, though. Marie whimpered in response.
“Oh, Marie, why?” Annie couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the evening’s events. Of all the guests in the house, Marie was the last one that she’d suspected of being a killer. She was so airy fairy, so woo woo, that Annie had completely written her off as nothing more than a lonely, loony woman looking for attention.
“Because it belongs to me,” she said simply. “Or, I thought it did. But it’s empty, and Lou’s dead, and now it’s all gone so wrong.” Her words melted into sobs, and as Delbert appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, Annie motioned for him to wait.
“I don’t understand--did you know Lou Ross?”
“I--I loved him,” Marie sniffed. “But he lied to me. And he took everything--all of my money--even after I helped him.”
Annie thought about the crumpled piece of paper she’d found in her office. “You mean telling him about the Martins?”
Marie nodded. “He thought they might be someone he’d--he’d taken money from,” she confessed. “We were a good team, but he was better. He fooled me,” she nodded, then dropped her head between her knees and gave into another sob.
“Why did you kill him?” Annie asked, her voice gentler than before.
“He betrayed me. There was money,” she whispered, “a lot of it. And I only wanted my share, but he laughed at me. He told me he didn’t have it, but he’d kept it safe. And then he said he couldn’t stay here. I think he thought that the Martins were someone else, but I told him that it was safe here.” She bit her lip, holding back more tears. “He said he had someone else in Mobile. He told me that he only needed to collect something from you and then he’d leave. I got angry, and I know I shouldn’t have, but I kissed him.”
“You kissed him?” Annie was baffled. “How would that kill a man?”
Marie put her fingers to her lips. “I knew he was deathly allergic to peanuts,” she admitted. “I had peanut oil on my lips. It’s wonderful for the skin, you know,” she added absentmindedly. “For a moment, it was perfect. He kissed me back, and it was literally breathtaking,” she giggled, then her face turned somber again. “But it was all for nothing. I was sure he’d have the money in his car, but that stupid dog nearly tore my hand off when I tried to look. I had to chase him off with a stick,” she explained.
“That’s why he doesn’t like you,” Annie marvelled. “You killed his owner, then you, what? Beat him with a stick until he ran off?” Annie was beginning to lose her sympathy towards the woman.
“Oh, no, I would never do that! I love animals, even ones that bark and bite, but he had to go away so I could find what belongs to me,” she emphasized. “I just chased him a little, then he ran off into the night. Of course, it’s just my luck that Lou had hidden it somewhere else.”
“It?” Annie was confused. “You mean your money?”
Marie nodded. “I worked for months with him, gathering information and helping him convince people to give him their money. We worked so well together, and I really thought…” she trailed off.
“You thought he loved you and was going to meet up with you here, for some sort of rendez vous?” Annie decided that she did feel sorry for the woman after all. Heck, Annie had been in sort of the same situation once, not the situation where she helped anyone con people out of their money, but she’d been betrayed by someone who claimed to have loved her. Her own husband had died and left behind a mistress who seemed to have spent more time with David Richards than Annie had, and she’d been married to him for nearly two decades.
Delbert gave Annie a questioning look, and she nodded, letting him know that he could now come inside and arrest Marie. As Delbert pulled out his handcuffs, Annie couldn’t resist asking one more question. “Why were you so sure that he’d put the money in the package? Wouldn’t that be risky? What if the package never arrived?”
Marie’s face twisted with bitterness. “When you said that he told you to expect a gift for his mother, I knew. His mother died ten years ago.”
Ouch. Annie decided that she did feel sorry for Marie. Whatever else she was, a bitter, heartbroken woman now sat on Annie’s floor, and nobody should ever be lied to by someone who claimed to love them.
Annie gently pried the pup off of Marie’s skirt and pulled him out of the policeman’s way. The dog sat obediently at her feet as she watched the room begin to bustle with activity. People started filling the parlour, the guests from the seance who’d been left waiting for Annie’s return, Frank searching for Doris, and Rory, who made his way straight to Annie’s side.
“I’m sorry about the deck,” Marie said suddenly. “I--I thought that I could somehow burn away the memory of that night, and I needed to convince you to do the seance. I had to be sure--” She stopped talking as Delbert began his speech about the right to remain silent, but as soon as he’d finished, Marie spoke again.
“Wait,” she said to Delbert before he could push her through the front door. “Annie, Rose says ‘thank you.’ She told me that you know her secret, but you’ve kept it for her, and she really appreciates it. She wanted me to tell you that, and also to tell you that your father loves you very much.”
Delbert waited for her to finish speaking, then pushed her out the door. “Nobody wants to hear your nonsense, lady.”
Annie paled slightly. “Can you believe the nerve of that woman?” Rory asked her. “Even as they’re hauling her away, she’s trying to play on your emotions.”
He noticed the box in Annie’s hands. “Is that it, the package from Lou Ross?” She nodded. “Can I see it?”
Annie handed him the box. “I guess the police are going to be mad because it’s covered in fingerprints now,” she said. “Marie seemed to think that it was going to be full of cash,” she added, “but it’s empty.”
“Did you check her pockets?” Rory teased. “And your silverware drawer?”
Annie shook her head. “She was so sad. I mean, she really seemed to love that guy, and according to her, he just crapped all over her from a dizzying height.” She explained what little she knew about Marie’s and Lou’s working relationship, and their personal one. “He was a con artist in every single sense of the word, I guess.”
Rory turned the box over in his hands, studying the craftsmanship. “This is weird,” he muttered, fingering a seam along the base of the box. He shook the whole thing gently, then tapped the base with his finger. “It’s got a hollow base,” he whispered, “I’m sure of it.” Rory continued to examine the box for a minute, until a familiar voice boomed from the kitchen.
“Annie, you in there?” Emmett appeared in the doorway to the parlour, his expression neutral. “Heard you had some problems with a guest?”
“Hey, Emmett,” Annie called back. “Yeah, but it’s okay, Karma caught up with her.” Annie reached down and picked up the puppy, who rewarded her with wet doggie kisses.
“Is that important?” Emmett asked, pointing to the box in Rory’s hands. “Like, ‘belonged to the dead man’ important?” He frowned at her. “I thought you told me you weren’t going to open it.”
“I didn’t,” Annie explained. She told him about Marie and the seance, and about Marie’s relationship to Lou. “I really don’t know why she stayed here all this time,” Annie finished. “I only got that package a couple of days ago, so she couldn’t have known about it before then. Why stay and risk getting caught?”
“Love and money. They make people do stupid, crazy things, Annie.” Emmett shook his head. “What’s in the box?”
“Noth-” Annie began, but Rory cut her off.
“About fifty-thousand dollars, I reckon.” He held out the box for Annie and Emmett to examine. A panel on one side had been slid out to reveal a neat little drawer just the right size for stashing a stack of cash, and inside was a stack of hundred dollar bills about as thick as a paperback novel.
“Well, now,” Emmett replied. “Wasn’t expecting that.” He took the box filled with cash. “I guess the psychic didn’t see that coming, either, did she?”
Annie knew she’d have to make an official statement, but first she wanted to get the dog outside and go check on her mother. She left Rory talking to Emmett and started picking her way through the group of people that filled the parlour, carrying the dog outside to take care of his business.
25
All’s Well and Farewells
The sun was shining through a spackling of clouds, put there, Annie was sure, to remind her just how spectacularly blue the Carolina sky could actually be. She carried two mugs of coffee, one with extra cream and sugar, and made her way down the slightly worn path to the wooden deck.
Bessie was there already, nibbling the edges of a cinnamon roll and contemplating something. Annie sat her mother’s coffee down on the table beside her and fell into the empty chair on the other side of the little table between them. She took a large swig of her own coffee and sighed. Bliss.
Crickets chirped somewhere around them, and something splashed in the water’s edge, probably a frog. Annie listened just a little harder and heard the gentle trickle of a stream. Actually, it was more like the remnants of one, that fed into the pond from some yet-to-be-discovered source. The scent of lavender and peppermint oil drifted on
the air, probably from Bessie, since she’d used the oils just that morning to try and achieve a sense of calm and clarity.
For a few minutes, neither woman spoke. They just sat, enjoying the stillness of a new morning and the company of someone they loved. Finally, Bessie broke the silence.
“I still can’t believe that Marie killed that man.”
Annie nodded. “Mm-hmm. I know what you mean. I always thought she was just, well, you know, sort of odd, but not odd enough to kill someone.”
“And she was a thief.” Bessie said this matter-of-factly, but not with malice. “Emmett found that box of school supplies in her room, for goodness sake. Now, what would she want with those?”
“I think she was looking for the other package, the one with the money in it, but she got the wrong one,” Annie explained. She recalled the number of times that she’d found her little office in disarray and blamed it on the cat. Emmett had told her that Marie, whose actual name was Emily Mortenson, had been arrested for breaking and entering when she was younger. Apparently ‘Marie’ knew how to pick almost every lock in Annie’s house.
“And she set fire to the deck,” Bessie added, taking a sip of coffee. “And poor Rory had to fix it,” she added. She took a bite of her cinnamon roll and chewed thoughtfully. “But still, she was very nice to me.”
Annie wanted to remind her mother that the ‘very nice’ woman had also stolen Alexander George’s eyedrops and put them in Rob and Kizzy’s drink, causing them to be violently ill. Emmett had confirmed that the same stuff used in eyedrops had been found in the tea. Annie could only surmise that ‘Marie’ had done this to make Frank look guilty, or perhaps to point the finger of suspicion at Alexander himself. She shuddered as she recalled finding the plastic cap to the bottle of eyedrops. Annie could never in a million years have guessed that she’d just found the evidence of a poisoning that day.
Corpses & Conmen (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 2) Page 19