Stranded

by Lorena McCourtney

  She jumped to her feet, blue eyes blazing in one of those spitfire swings of temper I’d heard about. “Sometimes I think I’ll just go up there and face her down. Do whatever it takes to get the truth out of her about how she killed him!”

  She loomed over me, tall and blond and strong, a Viking in a mini skirt, and I felt a spurt of alarm at what she might do. Something stronger than throwing soup in Lucinda’s face, I was afraid.

  “Oh no, KaySue, I don’t think that would be a good idea.” I pushed her back toward the stool because she looked as if she might dash out to her pickup and roar up to Hello right now. “If she’s guilty the police will figure it out. Don’t do anything you might regret.” As an afterthought I added, “Lucinda’s taken karate lessons, you know.”

  “I’m not afraid of her,” KaySue scoffed. “And if she did kill Hiram, she shouldn’t get away with it.”

  I agreed with that, but I still wasn’t ready to erase KaySue’s name completely from my list. She might be naïve, but she wasn’t dumb, and she looked at me as if she guessed what I was thinking.

  “You don’t think I went up there and started the fire, do you?”

  “The thought has occurred to me,” I admitted.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Maybe Hiram dumped you, and you wrote him a threatening letter before you went up there and killed him. And you were afraid we might find that letter too, and it would be quite incriminating. So you decided you’d better make sure it was destroyed.”

  It was a possibility that had just occurred to me. She blinked once as if flabbergasted by my accusation, then blinked harder to hold back the tears glistening in her eyes. I felt a stab of remorse. She was really upset that I’d think such a thing.

  Or maybe she was a really great actress …

  “That’s crazy,” she said finally with a vehement shake of head that swung the braid like a blond whip. “He didn’t dump me. We loved each other. He had something … something nice for me.”

  I knew that to be true. And in all honesty it did make my accusation look a little far out. Unless Hiram had planned the carousel horses as a parting gift because he was going to marry Lucinda …

  “You’re on Lucinda’s side, aren’t you?” she accused suddenly. She planted her fists on her hips. “Because you’re her age, and I’m not. And you don’t figure anyone as young as I am could really be in love with someone Hiram’s age!”

  I also blinked, uneasily wondering if there could be truth in that. Ageism in reverse? “I’m not on anyone’s side. I just want to find out who killed Hiram.”

  “It wasn’t me!” She squared her shoulders, her eyes blue ice now. “And don’t come back again.”

  She turned and stalked off toward the kitchen, exit punctuated by the swinging of the door behind her. I was sorry our brief relationship had ended this way.

  I was also sorry that deep down inside, I was now almost certain Lucinda was the killer. I’d tried my best to wiggle around it, but there it was.

  The full dress rehearsal started at one o’clock Wednesday afternoon. There were several crises. The tape with the music for Stella’s “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” number in the street scene exploded.

  “A tape can’t explode,” Lucinda protested.

  The woman handling the sound equipment lifted a handful of stuff that certainly looked like exploded tape. “No?”

  The chorus line did fairly well, except when a tumble by a woman on one end rippled through the line like falling dominos. Except the ripple stopped at Magnolia, who stood firm as a redheaded statue.

  I tried not to think about murder every time I looked at Lucinda. A killer? No, she couldn’t be. Yet the thoughts wouldn’t go away. Instead of seeing her waving her hand to direct the chorus line, I saw her waving something behind Hiram’s head, bringing it down hard …

  Someone produced a second tape for Stella. Her cold was gone now, and she no longer sounded as if she was gargling underwater. Good. That much was encouraging.

  But Mac’s battle with the rope was no more successful than before. Finally he tossed it aside in disgust. Lucinda waved him on. But a few moments later a voice broke into the monologue.

  “Bring back the rope!” The hoarse yell boomed from Doris Hammerstone, in that voice that sounded more longshoreman than LOL. She pounded her fist on her clipboard. “Bring back the rope!”

  Someone else took up the cry. “It’s better with the rope!”

  Hey, I realized, they were right! Maybe getting tangled in the rope wasn’t authentic Will Rogers, but with Mac it added a charm all his own. The cowboy bumbler spouting words of wisdom. I added my own cry. “Bring back the rope!”

  Lucinda, with a kind of resignation, waved toward the rope, and Mac retrieved it. “Just do whatever comes natural,” she said.

  What came natural to Mac with a rope was getting his feet, arms, and neck tangled in it, and he started adding a few comments of his own to those of the original Will. “This thing’s as tricky as a politician writing a new law, ain’t it?” he suggested.

  About that time, I made a decision. I was not going to think about murder and Lucinda now. After the Revue, yes, I’d have to do something about my suspicions then. I wasn’t certain what. Talk to Kelli, probably. But Lucinda wasn’t going to take off and disappear in the next few days, so there’d be time enough after the Revue.

  Then, two things happened.

  The first was that evening when Kelli came home and handed Abilene several folded sheets of paper. “My friend Linda in Texas faxed that to me today.”

  Abilene unfolded the pages. She got a strange look on her face, a light of happiness and yet uncertainty too, as if the pages were a wonderful gift, but she wasn’t certain it belonged to her. “This is it? It’s all legal?”

  “It’s all legal,” Kelli assured her. “She’ll send a certified copy in the mail, but this says it all.”

  Abilene read the papers and then handed them to me. Yes, there it was. The divorce was final. It took everything of any material value away from her and gave her nothing, but I knew that didn’t matter to her because it gave her what really mattered: an end to any tie to Boone. I went over and wrapped my arms around her in a big hug. She wiped a knuckle below her eye.

  “I kept thinking somehow … somehow it would all fall through. That maybe some unknown law would turn up that said I had to go back to him.”

  The tears weren’t unhappiness, I knew. Nor were they joy. They were simply relief. The long nightmare of being married to Boone Morrison was over.

  “You’re single, girl,” Kelli said. “Announce it to the world! Celebrate!”

  No celebration, I knew. No announcement. Just that sweeping sense of relief for Abilene. But I did hope she’d tell Mike Sugarman. One question, however.

  “And this all happened without Boone ever knowing where Abilene is?” I asked Kelli.

  “Linda said she had no contact with either Boone or his lawyer. She watched the local newspaper, and when she saw the divorce listed in the court proceedings she got a copy of the decree directly from the court records. I don’t see any way anyone could use any of that to trace Abilene.”

  I hoped that was true, and I so much wanted to believe the divorce meant Boone had abandoned the hunt for Abilene. I could see a new day dawning for her now, and from the look on her face she could too.

  “I have an announcement of my own to make,” Kelli added. She tried to sound offhand, but a whoop of glee burst through. “Chris and I have set the date! June 17.”

  She lifted her left hand, and I was surprised to see not an enormous diamond but a small one in an old-fashioned white-gold setting. “It was his grandmother’s. Char said she’d been saving it for him to give to the right girl.”

  Okay, Chris Sterling went up a notch in my estimation. I’d thought him the kind of guy who’d have to advertise his superiority and success with a flashy car, big house, and certainly a show-off diamond for his fiancée, but this was rea
lly sweet. And not only nice of Charlotte but a big vote of confidence from her too, in passing the family ring along to Kelli.

  I gave Kelli a hug. “Congratulations!”

  “We haven’t even started to think guest list yet, but you’re both invited, of course.”

  I didn’t want to throw any wet blanket on her joy, but I had to ask, “You’re sure, Kelli? Really sure?”

  Her smile would have lit up the dark tunnel of a mine. “Really sure.”

  The next thing happened the following day at the library. Charlotte and a woman I hadn’t met before, Anne Perkins, were on desk duty this day. About three o’clock, Charlotte brought over an older man who wanted to check out a book from Hiram’s library. We weren’t set up for loaning books out yet, but I let him have it, An Old-Timer’s Memories of Early Colorado Days. I put a due date on a slip to stick in the book and made a note of his name, address, and driver’s license number for myself.

  He seemed tickled by my precautions, as if I thought he might be planning to grab the book and hightail it across the border. He came up with a tale about some guy he’d known who’d done that after embezzling a fortune, then went on with reminiscences about Hiram and good times they’d had prospecting together.

  “Even though he was already rich, Hiram never gave up hoping he might strike another one like the Lucky Queen.”

  “He wanted more riches?”

  “Oh, I suppose. Who doesn’t? But mostly, I think, he just wanted the thrill of finding a big new vein of gold. He told me once he’d invested money with some guy searching for a sunken galleon in the Caribbean, and he sounded as if he’d like to go off to sea and help search himself.”

  I asked the question I always asked. “Have you any idea who might have killed him?”

  “Not a clue. Though it was something about money, I figure. Isn’t it most always about money?”

  The old guy may have been right about Hiram mostly wanting the thrill of finding some new treasure, but from what I’d seen, he was plenty fond of money and making more. I’d set aside a whole stack of books he’d collected on assets and investing, and I decided now that I’d set up a separate section on one of the shelves for these books.

  I brought a load of the books to my desk and started the process of cataloging them on the computer. Some of the titles were stuffy and serious: Understanding Investing in Futures and Sound Investment Strategies. But there was also Investing for Dummies, and Scammers and You: Don’t Be the Scammee!

  I was intrigued by that one. I opened the book. Actually it fell open by itself because several envelopes had been stuffed inside. When I saw the return address and foreign stamps, I felt a strange flutter of misgiving.

  By the time I’d read the first letter, I was startled. By the second letter I was stunned. And by the third letter I knew this changed everything.

  25

  I glanced up when I heard footsteps approaching my desk. I hastily jammed the letters and envelopes back in the book.

  “Charlotte,” I said a little breathlessly. Charlotte was the last person I wanted to see.

  “I was just wondering if I need to come up with a costume for Mac’s monologue.”

  “No. He said he has some old clothes that will do fine. And he picked up a scruffy-looking hat and cowboy boots at a secondhand store.”

  “He’s such a natural as Will Rogers. I’m especially glad, for Lucinda’s sake, that he showed up when he did. So many things have gone wrong with the Revue this year. But that rope bit is a stroke of genius. He just lights up the stage with it! I laughed until my side hurt.” She laughed now, as if just thinking about Mac and his wayward rope tickled her.

  I nodded, still clutching the book, my own smile anemic. I hoped nothing was sticking out of the book. Especially nothing showing the name or address of the sender.

  Charlotte leaned over to look at me more closely. “Are you okay? You look a little feverish.”

  Did what I knew show like a rash on my face? Was it sprouting in a big wart on my nose? I did feel warm. Perspiration ran down my ribs as if the book in my hands had turned into a nuclear-powered heating pad.

  “Oh, sure, I’m fine!” I managed a cough. Hack-hack. Phony as a kid trying to stay home from school for the day. “It’s just that some of these old books are so dusty.” That was true enough, and sometimes I really did cough.

  “If you’re going to come down with anything, hold off until after Saturday night. Lucinda’s about to go into meltdown as it is. I think she used to take things in stride better than she does now. Maybe age does that.”

  Only a few minutes ago I’d have been certain any problems Lucinda had were because she was stressed out with guilt and worry about murder and arson. With the information I now held in my hands, I knew murder, at least her involvement in murder, had nothing to do with her level of stress. But all I said was, “Is there some new problem?”

  “She had to get carpenters in to fix those loose boards and brace up the stage this morning. I think our chorus line may be getting a little tubby. She’s already said that even if the fire department doesn’t shut us down that this is going to be her last year directing the Revue.”

  “Well, I’m no problem for her. I’m fine,” I repeated. I straightened in my chair and widened my smile to prove it. “Did you get the ripped costume repaired?”

  “No, it was worse than I thought. But a seamstress down in Hayward is doing a rush job on a new costume and making some minor alterations on Magnolia’s costume too. I have to run down there in the morning and pick them up. Cross your fingers that I don’t have car trouble or something.”

  Under other circumstances I might have pointed out that I trusted in God, not crossed fingers, but the book felt as if it were growing in my hands, doing some Jack-and-the-Beanstalk thing right there in my hands to a size Charlotte couldn’t help but notice. I waited until she was back at the main desk talking to Victoria Halburton, who had just come in, before opening the book again. There were six envelopes in all, the last letter and enclosures dated only a month or so before Hiram’s death. I held everything down below desk level so I could read without anyone at the desk being able to see what I was doing.

  The revelation in the letters was clear. And that revelation would surely devastate Charlotte. She thought the sun rose and set on Chris. Chris, her handsome, smart, personable, workaholic son, hopefully soon to be father of her grandchildren. But what I had here definitely dimmed that glowing vision of Chris.

  Then the second phase hit me. Kelli would be devastated too. She’d been slow in coming to a decision about Chris, taken her time until she was certain, but she’d given her heart to him now.

  This would shatter both Kelli and Charlotte.

  Because Chris Sterling hadn’t just given Hiram faulty advice about putting money in a Bahamas bank. He’d personally set up the account and then embezzled the money. Drained the account, shaken it as clean as a kid emptying his brother’s piggy bank.

  Copies of Hiram’s side of the correspondence weren’t here. Perhaps he’d called the bank instead of writing. But the responses from the bank told it all. How Hiram had become suspicious of what Chris had told him about his money being lost in a bank disaster. How he’d contacted the bank directly about the account, and how they’d told him there had been no problem at the bank. The money had simply been withdrawn by his “authorized representative,” Christopher Sterling II. Included was a copy of the legal form Hiram had signed making Chris the authorized representative. Photocopies of other documents, with Chris’s signature, proved how he’d abused that status. He’d done it over a period of time, early small withdrawals escalating into large ones. Hiram had never known the money was missing because all the bank statements went to Chris’s office.

  I couldn’t tell from this what had eventually made Hiram aware the money was gone or what had prompted him to become suspicious of Chris’s explanation for its disappearance. From the bank’s point of view, it was all quite legal,
as they firmly pointed out. They’d done nothing wrong. But Chris certainly had. Although he may have been Hiram’s “authorized representative” with legal access to the account, Hiram obviously had not authorized him to remove the money. Money that Chris had just as obviously diverted to himself rather than passing on to Hiram. The final letter showed that Hiram himself had closed the account and withdrawn the minuscule amount remaining in it.

  I’d like to be able to think I’d cleverly had some intuition or hunch about Chris’s treachery, but I’d had nothing at all. I hadn’t been able to like Chris, but I’d accepted at face value what I’d heard from Kelli about Hiram losing money in an unwise investment in an offshore bank. Irrelevantly, I thought old Hiram’s haphazard filing system made a certain sense after all. All his papers about being scammed on an investment were right here in a book on that very subject. The thought also occurred to me that ex-girlfriend Suzy probably wasn’t going to be surprised when all this came out.

  Now what? Should I first show all this to Kelli or go directly to the authorities with it?

  Because these letters suggested much more than the proof of embezzlement. Hiram obviously hadn’t yet gone to the authorities with this information before his death, which made it a powerful motive for murder. Murder done by Chris Sterling to hide his other crime of embezzlement before Hiram went public with it.

  Had Chris known these letters and documents existed somewhere? Was that the motive for arson as well as murder? He could have had a key copied from one Kelli had. Or Hiram may even have given him one, since he apparently was at the house fairly often. Which meant he surely also knew about the trash room and its easy flammability.

  He’d needed to make certain these letters and documents never came to light. Perhaps he’d been afraid that in my search for a “secret room” I might run across this incriminating evidence. Burning the house and all its contents was the way to get rid of it. Never mind that Abilene and I might lose our lives too. We were expendable. He’d apparently never guessed the incriminating papers had already been removed from the house.