by Judy Nickles
Almost immediately, a man claiming to be Holmes’ illegitimate son filed claim for the considerable estate which had been left for distribution among a dozen charities. Unable to back up his claim through documentation or DNA, the pseudo-son aka Danny Holmes lost his case and quietly disappeared.
“It would help to know how old that son was,” Penelope said.
“Why?” Shana yawned and began to organize the notes she’d taken.
“For one thing, Travis Holmes was eighty-two. That would be a little old to have a son below a certain age.”
Shana giggled. “Maybe it’s like riding a bicycle—you never forget how.”
Penelope rolled her eyes. “I should’ve looked him up, too.”
“There’s always tomorrow.” Shana stretched out on her bed. “Which, by the way, it already is.”
Penelope lay down and reached to switch off the lamp. “I think we may be onto something.”
“Something the police aren’t?”
“That’s what bothers me. If they aren’t, they should be. Or, there’s something we haven’t figured out.”
Shana yawned again. “Goodnight. Please.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
(Thursday)
The shrill ringing of the phone on the table between their beds woke Penelope and Shana before daylight. Penelope had her hand on it before she remembered. Four rings. A hang-up. Three rings. She waited, but the phone remained still. “I don’t like that,” she mumbled.
“Wrong room. Go back to sleep.” Shana rolled over.
The sound of someone at the door brought them both upright. Penelope reached under her pillow for the gun. She thought she heard Shana gasping for air. The muffled noise outside the door ceased, but she kept the revolver aimed in that direction as she counted to fifty. “They’re gone,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“I think so.” Penelope slipped the gun under her pillow again. “If I ever see Sam again, I’m going to kill him in cold blood.”
“I’ll help.” Shana sat up and switched on the lamp, then hugged her knees as if the position protected her.
Penelope fell back on her pillow and threw one arm across her eyes. “I was dreaming about Pembroke Point. Bradley loves that place. He didn’t want to run it, but he always considered it his real home.”
“It’s like a piece of history, isn’t it?”
“I think maybe it’s the only thing that Travis was…is completely faithful to.”
“Probably.”
“The house is over a hundred years old, although most of the out-buildings have been replaced.” Penelope propped herself on one elbow. “When Travis is gone, it’ll belong to Bradley.”
“I thought we’d established that,” Shana said.
“I keep thinking about Travis Holmes’ so-called son. What if…”
“What if he’s really Travis Pembroke’s illegitimate son?” Shana finished. “It would make more sense, wouldn’t it?”
“Nothing really makes any sense at all, but he may have half-a-dozen offspring running around somewhere.”
Shana burst into tears. “At least I made sure that wouldn’t happen to me. I knew it wasn’t forever.” She pulled the sheet over her face. “Why did I get mixed up with him? I knew better, and I did it anyway.”
“Well, so did I,” Penelope murmured. “I don’t regret my son, though, and I’d fight anybody who tried to take what’s rightfully his.” Shana’s sobbing irritated her. “Oh, dry up, Shana. What’s done is done. At least you wised up eventually.”
Shana wiped her eyes with the edge of the sheet. “It’s easy enough for you to say.”
“Not really. I’m a divorced Catholic. There’s a certain stigma attached to those circumstances.”
“I never thought about that. And you can’t marry again either, can you? At least not as long as Travis is alive.”
“I never wanted to. But I carry the guilt of a failed marriage anyway.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Travis…”
“Maybe if I’d been different somehow…given him a reason to want to come home every night, you know?”
“I don’t think it would’ve made any difference. In the three months I lived there, I’m sure he had at least one other woman besides me.”
“Oh, Shana, I’m sorry.”
Shana took a deep breath. “I’m not. At least I’m not sorry now. And I guess I’m glad he’s not dead—for Brad’s sake if for nothing else.”
“Yes.” Penelope glanced at the clock. “It’s almost seven. Why don’t we have some breakfast and then get on the computer? I want to know more about the man who claimed to be Travis Holmes’ son.”
“I don’t want to leave the room,” Shana said. “Somebody’s out there and…”
“All right, we’ll get room service this morning. Maybe we’ll think clearer after we eat something.”
The phone rang again before she could swing her legs over the side of the bed. Four rings. Silence. Then three rings. She snatched up the received.
“It’s Sam.”
“Where are you?”
“Here in the hotel. I need to come up.”
“Were you trying to break into our room about twenty minutes ago?”
“No.”
“Do you know who was?”
“I need to come up. I’ll knock four times, then three more. Look out your peephole to be sure it’s me before you open the door.” He hung up.
“Sam’s on his way up,” Penelope said. “We better get some clothes on.
****
“Travis Pembroke is alive,” she said as soon as Sam stepped inside. She watched his face, but it didn’t change expression.
“What did you get out of his safe?” Sam straddled the chair at the desk.
“What belongs to my son.”
“What else?”
Penelope and Shana exchanged glances. “If I tell you, maybe you’ll just get rid of both of us right here and now.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Cash?”
Penelope looked at Shana again, then nodded.
“How much?”
“Half a million dollars.”
“You’re sure about that.”
She nodded again.
“Where is it?”
“Safe where nobody will find it.”
She waited for him to insist on knowing, but he didn’t.
“I couldn’t find the safe.” He seemed to be waiting for her to tell him where it was.
“So you don’t know everything.”
“I don’t know everything. Tell me about someone trying to get in here.”
She told him about the phone call and the sounds outside the door. “Do you know who it was? Was it the other guy who stayed at the B&B? The one Shana and I saw on the street the other day?”
He studied her for a long moment. “You don’t need to know.”
“Travis didn’t see us last night. At least, I don’t think he did. Is he at this hotel?”
“No.”
“But he’s here in Eureka Springs. We could run into each other.”
“You could.”
“Oh, Sam, if you’d just explain things a little better…”
He rose and went to the door. “Half a million dollars doesn’t need an explanation. I’ll be around.” He paused to look both ways before he stepped out into the corridor.
Penelope put the deadbolt and chain on again. “Well,” she said, collapsing on the foot of her bed, “that was blessed enlightening.”
They ordered room service and watched a forties movie with Bette Davis before Penelope turned off the television and said, “I’m going down and get on the computer again.”
Shana sighed. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I will. Are you going to take George?”
“I thought I would.”
“Do you have a concealed carry license, by the way?”
“I used to when I worked in the ER
in Little Rock and commuted back and forth at all hours. Daddy made me carry his gun. I guess it’s still good, but I don’t have it with me.”
“You guess? I’d hate for you to get arrested and leave me on my own.”
Penelope tucked the gun in her purse. “If I have to get it out to shoot somebody, I’ll end up in custody anyway. Grab the notes and stuff, and let’s go.”
As soon as they stepped off the elevator, Penelope glanced through the glass window of the business center and realized both computers were being used. “We’ll have to wait.”
Shana turned toward the elevator door which was sliding shut.
“No, I don’t want to go back upstairs. Let’s take the trolley again.”
“And risk running into Travis or maybe the other man?
Penelope shrugged. “It would be interesting to hear what Travis has to say about this whole blessed mess, don’t you think?”
“What would be interesting is to hear him trying to explain things to his ex-wife and his ex-mistress who seem to be joined at the hip.”
****
They bought a cheap tote bag for the printed notes and spent an uneventful day in town, winding up at a new seafood restaurant on Beaver Lake before going back to the hotel. “I’ll check to see if there’s a free computer,” Penelope said as they entered the hotel lobby.
Shana handed her the tote. “Do you mind if I go on upstairs? You’ve got George.”
“Go on. I’ll use my key.”
As soon as Shana disappeared into the elevator, Penelope went to the business center and found it empty. Spreading out the pages she’d printed the night before, she fixed the locations and names in her mind and began to type. Half an hour later, she had a pretty good picture of the man who had claimed to be Travis Holmes’ son.
Danny Holmes, the man claiming to be the illegitimate son and only heir of late Montgomery attorney Travis Holmes, refused to comment on allegations he was born Lawrence Drake and has served a total of seven years on separate drug convictions since 1998, when he was convicted of cocaine possession. Released in 2001, he was arrested a month later outside a bar in Memphis during an altercation involving drugs. He pled guilty to simple assault and received a two-year sentence. In 2005, he was charged with possession of methamphetamine but cooperated with authorities by naming the local lab where it was produced. Shortly after receiving probation, he disappeared before DEA officials could question him about his alleged connection to smuggling drugs from several Latin American countries in return for weapons.
“Nice,” Penelope said aloud. “I’ll bet Travis Pembroke was chewing nails if he knew all this.” Shuffling the papers into a pile, she tucked them back into the tote and headed for the elevator, but not before checking the corridor for any evidence of Sam or Travis Pembroke.
Shana sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed watching the late news. “Listen,” she murmured, pointing at the television set.
Chief Harley Malone stood behind a man in a suit and tie at a podium Penelope recognized as one from the high school auditorium. “…positively identified as local businessman Roger Sitton. The whereabouts of Shana Bayliss, the other resident of Pembroke Point, is still under investigation.” The picture changed to a traffic accident on I-30.
“Fill me in,” Penelope said, making sure the deadbolt was in place.
“The man in the suit is with the state police. He said the DNA test on the other body is inconclusive, whatever that means.”
“I’ll tell you what it means,” Penelope said. “Bradley said he’d given a DNA sample the morning after the fire. Apparently, it could be used to identify Travis, but it didn’t, or they’d have said so.”
“Why don’t they know where I am? You seemed to think Sam and Brad knew each other.”
“I’m beginning to wonder just how they know each other.”
“If they’re on different sides of the law, we’re both in trouble.”
“So’s Daddy. I wish I’d thrown a fit about Sam stashing him somewhere, but at the time it didn’t seem like it would have made any difference.”
Shana twisted her mouth. “Did you find anything online?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll let you read everything, but basically Danny Holmes was 28 years old, which is four years younger than Bradley. I’m betting he’s the second body.”
“Why?”
“Well, we know it’s not Travis. He’s walking around Eureka Springs somewhere in the unblemished flesh. But if Danny Holmes is his son, then Bradley’s DNA would be a partial match for him, too.”
Shana shook her head.
“Listen, Shana, when you described how Travis closed up most of the house and let the housekeeper go, I didn’t connect the dots, but I do now. He was forting up.”
“Forting up?”
“Travis never did anything without a good reason. I’m guessing he’d had some sort of run-in with this Danny Holmes who, when he couldn’t get anything out of the other estate, went after Travis. And Travis wasn’t going to let anybody on the face of God’s green earth take anything away from Bradley.”
“Aren’t you reaching?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Danny Holmes was bad news, and Holmes wasn’t the only name he used.”
“How did you find all that out on the computer?”
“I just kept typing in names and places and matching information.”
“So you think he put pressure on Travis to pay him off or something?”
“Or something. What I can’t figure out is how Roger Sitton and Sam figure into all this.” Penelope took her nightshirt out of the drawer and started for the bathroom. “I’ll be back, and we’ll take this whole scenario apart piece by piece and put it back together again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
(Friday)
The women pulled another two AM without drawing any firm conclusions. Penelope put the ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door so they could sleep late without being wakened by housekeeping. It was noon before she opened her eyes to see Sam sitting in a chair by the built-in desk. “What are you blessed doing here?” she gasped, pulling the covers around her.
Her outrage woke Shana, who saw Sam and dived under the sheet.
“How did you get in?” Penelope asked. “I made sure the deadbolt was on.”
Sam smiled, which made her blood pump faster and not entirely from anger or fear. “Never mind. I’m in.”
“Then you can just get out!”
“I need more answers.”
“About what?”
“About Danny Holmes.”
“How…”
“If you’re going to use a public computer, clear your history when you’re done.”
Penelope struggled to sit up without letting the sheet fall away. “Oh.”
“Tell me about Danny Holmes.”
“You’re the one who knows things. You tell me.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have time to play games, Penelope. Start from the beginning, and tell me everything.”
He knows about the money, and now he’s trying to find out what I know about the fire and the rest of the mess…and when he finds out, then what?
“Spill it.”
Shana’s disembodied voice, high-pitched with fear, came from beneath the covers on the other bed. “Tell him, and get rid of him.”
“I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Not even a small one.”
Penelope sighed and began to talk. When she’d finished, Sam stretched his blue-jeaned legs in front of him and put his hands behind his head. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“What made you take that direction?”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to do what I told you.”
“Why? What kind of authority do you have?” The sheet fell away as Penelope leaned forward, and she made a grab for it.
Sam laughed. “Your virtue is safe with me. Not that you don’t look f
etching in that faded nightshirt.”
Penelope bunched the sheet under her chin. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Two helpless women…”
Sam rose. “You’re far from helpless, and no, I’m not enjoying this. Not any of it.” He walked to the door and opened it a crack. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Is he gone?” Shana’s eyes appeared above the edge of the sheet.
“Yes.”
Shana sat up. “He gives me the creeps.”
He gives me something besides the creeps, something I couldn’t say to Fr. Loeffler in confession, and I’ve never felt that way before in my life, not even when Travis was giving me the rush.
“Shana, think. We’ve got to figure this out before he does.”
“And do what with the information?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then why strain our brains any more?”
“Listen, we’ve got a man with a criminal record possibly trying to blackmail Travis, and we’ve got half a million dollars lying around in a safe. It’s not cotton money. It’s…”
“Drug money,” Shana finished.
“Very likely. What if Travis was running some drugs to pay him off? They used to ship cotton from the landing at the bayou, so why not drugs?”
“Bradley knew what his father was. Why would it shock him to find out he had a half-brother?”
“I guess it wouldn’t have, but maybe Danny Holmes was agreeing to disappear for a price. Relinquish all claims on Pembroke Point whenever the time came.”
“I guess it could have happened that way, but where does Sam figure in?”
“He’s part of the drug thing. With Danny Holmes dead, the money’s all his, and he wants it.”
“He didn’t make you tell him where it was.”
“He knows I’ve got it.”
“But if he’s after the money, why doesn’t he want it right now so he can disappear?”
“I might tell him if…no, I wouldn’t. If it’s drug money, it doesn’t belong to him.”
“Well, I don’t want to find out who it belongs to.”
Penelope threw back the covers. “Travis knows, I’ll bet. Maybe we need to track him down and find out.”