High Country Fall

by Margaret Maron

  “He’ll never get better, but his downhill progress has slowed,” she said. “I discovered that nice things lift his spirit, help him not feel so depressed. That’s why I was so ready to buy from Mr. Watson without asking a lot of questions. Since my husband’s retirement, it’s gotten harder and harder to make ends meet, and Mr. Watson seemed to offer a solution.”

  “You have a home in Miami?”

  She nodded.

  “Palm Beach?” I hazarded.

  “No.” A suggestion of disdain passed across her face. “The Gables.”

  “The Gables?”

  “Coral Gables,” she admitted reluctantly. “That’s where my practice is.”

  Images of wide, winding streets, royal palms, pools, and oak-shaded tennis courts floated through my mind. “That’s quite a wealthy area, too, isn’t it?”

  “I guess. It’s not Star Island, but it’s much more historical. Our house isn’t directly on the water, though.” She could see where this was going and was clearly torn between begging poverty and enlightening the ignorant about life in “the Gables.”

  “When your husband retired, did he sell his dental practice?”

  She nodded. “But he got nothing close to what it was worth. He was in a partnership with a younger dentist, who couldn’t afford to buy him out. His key-man insurance—”

  “His what?” I interrupted, not catching the term since she’d run the words together.

  “Key, man,” she repeated, enunciating each word separately.

  Instantly, I thought of the insurance my cousin Reid and I had carried on my older cousin John Claude when we first restructured our law firm after Reid’s dad retired. A “key-man” policy covers the death of someone who is key to the success of a business enterprise or professional partnership, as John Claude was to two young attorneys like Reid and me.

  “It paid out to the partnership only if my husband died, not if he got sick.”

  Mrs. Tuzzolino’s voice turned bitter as she described how his partner claimed that without that insurance money he couldn’t afford to buy her husband’s percentage of the business. He’d threatened to declare bankruptcy if they tried to hold him to the terms of the partnership’s buy-sell agreement, another familiar term from my own partnership.

  Even though he was our rainmaker at the start, John Claude had declared his faith in our potential by splitting the partnership into three equal shares. If he’d died, the key-man insurance would have paid us a third of the firm’s worth, which wouldn’t have made up for his loss. On the plus side however, if he’d become sick or incapacitated, Reid and I would only have had to come up with a third to buy him out under the terms of the partnership’s buy-sell agreement, not the half John Claude was probably worth at the time.

  “We had to dissolve the partnership and sell out,” said Mrs. Tuzzolino, “but it was a bloody fire sale.”

  My heart bled. Poor lady. Two expensive homes to keep up? Having to scrape along on whatever few pennies they’d managed to save from two high-yield careers?

  “I’m willing to pay restitution and a fine, Your Honor, but I’m begging you, woman to woman, to suspend any active sentence you were thinking of imposing.” A tear trickled slowly down her smooth cheek. (Botox or plastic surgery?) “My husband needs me. If you separate us, he could sink back into depression. Maybe even harm himself.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told her, “but life is full of choices and you made yours when you chose Mr. Watson to be your personal shopper.”

  I ordered a mental health evaluation for Dr. Tuzzolino and sentenced them both to a total of eight months, six of it suspended to five years of supervised probation. In addition to restitution, I added up the value of the stolen goods—three thousand dollars if I counted the teak bench as worth nine hundred—and fined them nine thousand dollars.

  Her tears disappeared as quickly as they had come. She coolly gave notice of appeal, and I set their bond at a hundred thousand.

  After that, I needed a break and one of May’s cinnamon rolls to get the taste of Mrs. Tuzzolino out of my mouth.

  CHAPTER 17

  Within moments of recessing, I heard some of the rumors swirling through the halls back of the courtroom. They said Norman Osborne had been found somewhere below Joyce and Bobby Ashe’s house. He had tripped over the railing on the lower terrace and banged his head. He had been beaten to death. He had been knifed. He had collapsed from a heart attack. Take your pick. The only thing everyone agreed on was that he was dead.

  Dead?

  That big easygoing man who’d stood on the terrace beside me last night and teased me for being a bootlegger’s daughter?

  That successful, hard-nosed businessman, who hadn’t been at all shy about singing his love for his wife in front of a crowd?

  Even though I’d only met him last night, I felt a touch of the shock and dismay that must be running through the people who’d known him better.

  Poor Sunny. I had enjoyed making music with her and Joyce last night. What could she be feeling now? Still so much in love with her husband, so dependent on him for emotional support. She must be shattered.

  And the Ashes. So pleased with the prospects of their brand-new partnership, a partnership now abruptly ended.

  Mary Kay declined my offer of a cinnamon roll— “I’m doing the no-carbs thing this week”—and went off to see what she could find out.

  In the end, I wound up sharing with George Underwood. We nodded to each other as he moved through the hall amid attorneys, parole officers, and assorted law personnel, and when he stopped inside my door, I saw him looking hungrily at the rolls.

  “Have one,” I said. “I’ll bet you missed lunch.”

  He didn’t have to be asked a second time.

  There was an extra cup sitting on Rawlings’s bookcase, and I gestured for Underwood to help himself from the coffee carafe as well.

  “I didn’t realize you were head of the detective squad.”

  “It’s not a very big one,” he said. “Probably half the men your Major Bryant supervises.”

  “But it’s true what they’re saying about Norman Osborne? That he died from a fall off the Ashes’ terrace last night?”

  “’Fraid so. I heard you were there?”

  “Well, I didn’t actually see him fall, but yes, I was there when he went missing.”

  “The way they described it, you would’ve been facing the room, playing the guitar?”

  “Yes, but if you’re asking me who came and went before his wife missed him, I can’t help you. Most of the faces were unfamiliar. The only ones I could say for sure were in the room the whole time before he disappeared were Mrs. Osborne and Mrs. Ashe.”

  “What about before the music started? Did he have any words with anybody?”

  “Like a fight? No. It was all very pleasant. They were celebrating the new partnership. I guess you heard about that?”

  He nodded.

  “The only thing halfway argumentative was when someone called Dr. Ledwig a bigot and Osborne defended him and—oh my God!” I said. “It’s the same as Ledwig! He took a fall just like Osborne. Was Osborne hit over the head, too? They were friends. Are the two deaths related?”

  “Whoa, slow down,” he said, sounding for a moment just like Dwight. “It’s early days for that. Yes, he was hit on the head, and yes, he seems to’ve been thrown over, but it could be a complete coincidence. We’re still looking for the weapon. We found blood on the railing of the bottom terrace and along the edge of the tiles. Looks like someone hit him so hard, he fell across the railing, and then they probably grabbed his legs and swung them over and let gravity do the rest.”

  He had finished the bun in three bites, so I tore a small piece off mine and passed the rest of it over to him.

  “You sure you don’t want it?” he asked.

  “I’m sure,” I lied.

  “Thanks. The others were going to pick up some hot dogs at the Trading Post, but I was afraid I’d miss court if I s
topped to eat. Anyhow, the EMT who looked at his head said it was probably loss of blood that actually killed him, not the blow and not the fall. If he’d landed with his head up, he might have lived. We’ll have to wait and see what the autopsy shows. The blow was to the back of the head, not front like Ledwig, and it was only one laceration.” He held his thumb and index finger about two inches apart. “But the EMT thinks it was a full-thickness tear and being on the head and him hanging head down …”

  “You don’t have to elaborate,” I said. “A medical examiner once told me that under the right circumstances you could bleed to death from a relatively small scalp wound in fifteen or twenty minutes, that the scalp is nothing but a mass of tiny blood vessels.”

  “Be good if we could find the weapon,” said Underwood.

  I had been visualizing the lower level of the Ashe home, the pottery, the photographs of their children and grandchildren, the long ledge crowded with candlesticks, the— Wait a minute! Candlesticks?

  “Could it have been one of those candleholders?” I asked, describing the oak shelf where they stood.

  He knew it and nodded. “We thought of that, but there must be forty-five or fifty on that shelf, and just eyeballing with a magnifying glass, we didn’t see blood on any of them.”

  “Because it’s not there anymore.”

  “Huh?”

  “Last night, when everyone was looking for Norman Osborne, I noticed that some of the candlesticks had been knocked over. I straightened them, but there was one extra candle left. I stood it up at the back, so maybe you didn’t notice?”

  “We didn’t,” he admitted. “I didn’t.”

  “That many candles, why would you? But the missing holder has to be fairly massive because the leftover candle’s one of those tall fat ones and I noticed that Joyce varied them in proportion to the holder. The base is probably six or eight inches in diameter. At least.”

  “That would certainly cut a two-inch gash,” he said. He drained his coffee cup and stood to go. “I’ll get the guys back out there. Whoever did this probably heaved the thing as far as they could. God knows where it could have rolled to. Maybe you could adjourn early this afternoon? Ride up with me and show me where the candlesticks were when you noticed them?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “That might trigger Mrs. Ashe’s memory. She didn’t think any were missing.”

  “My fault. When I set them up, I must have covered the gaps.” I glanced at my watch. Break time was over. “Meet you at four o’clock?”

  “I’ll be downstairs,” he said.

  CHAPTER 18

  I had told William Deeck that I wanted to adjourn at four, and he did his best, but the last case ran a few minutes past. As I gaveled the session adjourned and the handful of people who remained rose to leave, the door at the back of the courtroom opened a crack and May peeked in. Seeing that court was over, she pushed through the door and hurried up to the bench.

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t get to talk to you.” She still had on her apron, and flour dusted her copper-colored hair.

  “What’s up?” I asked as I finished signing some forms for Mary Kay.

  May waited till she turned to go, then whispered urgently, “We heard Norman Osborne’s dead?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. Did y’all know him?”

  “Not us, but Carla did.” By now we were alone in the courtroom, and her voice returned to its normal level. “He and her dad used to be really tight and now he’s been killed the same way, right?”

  “That’s how it’s looking,” I said.

  “So the same person must have killed them both, right?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “But two old guys? Friends? The same exact way? Isn’t that enough to undo what you did to Danny yesterday?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, May. It doesn’t work like that. It’s up to the district attorney to decide whether to go forward on his case.”

  May drew her small frame up indignantly. “But if the same person—”

  “If. That’s the operative word here.” I stepped down from the bench. “Come on back with me so I can get out of this robe.”

  She trailed along behind me, arguing as we went that since Danny Freeman could prove he’d been working down in Howards Ford last night, he couldn’t have had anything to do with Norman Osborne’s death. And if he was innocent of that, then anybody with a grain of sense should agree he was also innocent of Carlyle Ledwig’s death, right?

  “Well, it’s certainly another argument his attorney can present to the jury when it goes to trial,” I assured her as I unzipped my robe and hung it on a hook behind the door.

  When she started huffing in frustration again, I said, “Look, May, for what it’s worth, I think you may be right.”

  She brightened. “Really?”

  “Coincidences can and do happen, but this is way too similar.”

  “Yes!” Her fist punched the air. “I can’t wait till Carla gets out of class.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” I warned. “That was a purely civilian opinion and it wouldn’t carry an ounce of weight with the DA.”

  “You’re no civilian. You’re a judge.” Her dark eyes flashed with sudden mischief. “And I bet it would too carry some weight with the luscious Lucius.”

  I laughed and made shooing motions with my hands. “Don’t you have some bread to make? Go!”

  “Time to make the doughnuts,” she droned, mimicking a commercial that was popular when she was a kid. “See you around midnight.”

  Up since daybreak, on her feet at the Tea Room since ten, and now she would go mix up the dough for tomorrow’s bread, then waitress at the Mountain Laurel Restaurant till eleven tonight; yet her steps were light as she darted down the hall. I’m still three years away from forty, but just thinking about her schedule made me feel tired.

  When I got downstairs, the door to George Underwood’s office was open and I could hear him on the phone as I got closer.

  “Okay, honey, let’s hear you spell black … That’s right, it starts off just like blue. Bl-bl-ack … Hey! Good! Now what about yellow? … Green? … Okay, Miss Smartypants, spell chartreuse.”

  He was still laughing as I paused in his doorway, and he gave me a wave. “Gotta go now, sweetheart. Tell Mommy I’ll try to be home for supper, okay? … Love you.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “That last case ran a little long.”

  “It’s all right.” He grabbed his jacket from the coat-rack. “We’re not on any schedule.”

  “Was that your daughter?”

  “Yeah. She aced her spelling test today. When you’re in first grade, every day’s a nice adventure.” He pulled his office door to and we walked down the hall, past uniformed officers who nodded as we passed. “The nine-year-old still likes school, too, but the oldest’s in sixth grade now and it’s starting to be cool to gripe about it.”

  “All girls?”

  “The older two are boys.” He held the outer door for me and we stepped out into late-afternoon sunlight. “You have kids?”

  “Just nieces and nephews.”

  “What about Major Bryant?”

  “A son. He lives with his mother in Virginia, though.”

  “Rough,” Underwood said sympathetically.

  I nodded.

  Another one of the reasons Dwight said he wanted to get married was so he could make a real home for Cal down here and maybe get the custody agreement modified. I like Cal and I think he likes me, but for the first time, I felt a touch of apprehension. If this wedding comes off, it won’t be for weekend visits only. We’ll probably have him for holidays, certainly for several weeks every summer. I’ll be his stepmother. He’ll be part of my daily life.

  A stepmother?

  Me?

  I remember all the tales I’ve heard of how some of my brothers resented my mother when Daddy remarried so quickly after their own mother died. She eventually won them all over, but things must have been uncomfortable th
e first year or so.

  Of course, Jonna’s still alive and kicking—still bitching, too, according to Dwight’s mother. (Dwight takes in stride her gripes about the size of his child-support payments, but Miss Emily’s more outspoken.) Anyhow, it’s not as if I’m going to usurp Jonna’s place in Cal’s affections. And he’s still young enough to adapt, unlike my last lover’s sixteen-year-old daughter, who never stopped scheming to get her parents back together.

  And did.

  But that’s all spilt milk under the bridge now, as my brother Haywood would say, and no point crying over it, although I’d certainly done my share of crying last spring and kept a good pity party going for myself halfway through the summer.

  Underwood waited while I unlocked the trunk of my car and stashed my laptop.

  “You sure you don’t want me to follow you in my car so you don’t have to bring me back?” I asked.

  “No problem.” He held the door of a nearby unmarked car and helped me figure out the unfamiliar seat belt. “I have to come back this way to get home.”

  “You live here in town?”

  “On my salary?” He gave an amused snort. “No, we live down in Howards Ford. No schools up here anyhow. And most of the subdivisions have rules against toys left on the driveway.”

  “No toys?”

  “All bikes, trikes, and games have to be stowed in the backyard or out of sight. Goes with the rules about keeping the grass mowed and the hedges clipped. You’d be amazed how many calls we get about unmowed grass every summer.”

  I shuddered. “Even without all that regimentation, it’d probably still be dull for children here. No school activities, no McDonald’s, no movies.”

  “Hey, we have movies,” Underwood said with mock indignation as we pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. “There’s a film festival every summer in the little park back of the library.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Art films? Foreign imports with subtitles?”