“That’s odd,” I said, not that Amber Delgado wasn’t odd from the get-go.
“We took Delgado in for kidnapping, and I asked her about finding a sitter. She said the strangest thing. She said, ‘The mind poison stops here.’ That make any sense to you?”
“In a way, yes. She didn’t want to poison her daughter’s mind the way her mother poisoned hers. I’m thinking she probably didn’t want to kill Sherry with her daughter in the house.” Again, my tears threatened.
“That’s a stretch, Mad,” Werner said.
“Because you don’t know the facts.”
Werner rocked on his heels. “Suppose you tell me the facts, then.”
“Let me call Sherry first.”
Werner sighed, and I got into the police car and called Sherry. She heard my voice and burst into tears. I joined her but composed myself quickly, told her that I loved her, and that I was on my way home.
Nick put our bags in the trunk of the police car. “My car’s in the lot,” he said, getting into the front seat, “but I’ll come back for it.”
“Why didn’t you offer me a ride this morning?” I asked. “I had to take a bus.”
“I needed to catch you by surprise, didn’t I, if I wanted to go with you?”
“Right.”
Werner joined me in the backseat. “Billings, drive,” he said. “It’s time, Madeira, the facts as you know them.”
“As a child Cort was cared for by a nurse/nanny who had a daughter named Pearl Morales. We spoke with Pearl’s brother today. Pearl and Cort grew up together; they were best friends. Cort told me that himself.”
“I’m listening.”
“Cort was engaged to marry Pearl when Deborah got in the way, effectively put an end to the engagement, and sent Pearl running home to her family. Pregnant. Amber Delgado is Pearl Morales Delgado’s daughter, possibly, no probably, by Cort. Morales never knew Amber’s father’s name, but he believes that Amber did.”
Werner sat straighter. “Now there’s a skeleton I hadn’t found. Does any of this comes with evidence?”
“Depends on what you consider evidence,” I said, thinking of my visions, rather worthless when you came right down to it. “Pearl’s brother said that Pearl called herself ‘the throwaway bride’ and until her death, she relived her every minute at the Vancortland estate, filling her daughter’s head with hate.”
Werner reopened his notebook. “I’m listening. I’m not saying I’m buying it, but I’m listening.”
“After Pearl died, her daughter kind of lost it. Amber spent time in a psychiatric treatment facility, probably while she was a teen, judging from the time frame her uncle suggested. She ran away from the facility without being discharged, and her uncle lost track of her.”
“You got that from the uncle today? Will he testify?”
Nick nodded. “We didn’t ask but I think so. Delgado’s a reasonable man and family obviously means a great deal to him. I believe he’ll do what’s best for his niece.” He seems to think that Amber Delgado has all but lived her mother’s experience at the Vancortland house. My guess is that she needs her ghosts brought out in the open to put them to rest.”
“I agree,” I said. “Don’t forget that both Amber and Jasmine came to Mystick Falls shortly after Sherry and Justin’s engagement hit the society pages. Suppose they came because of the announcement but for different reasons.”
Werner kept writing. “If Amber Delgado is mentally unstable,” he said, speaking as if to himself, “a Vancortland wedding announcement could have put her over the edge.” He shook his head. “But it’s all hearsay and speculation.”
As I clutched my bag with the sketches, Nick turned in his seat. “Ladybug, be careful.” The unnecessary endearment, likely for Werner’s benefit, was not quite a request for a pissing contest, but it was certainly an “I know something you don’t.”
Werner gave me a look.
I shrugged, denying the implication. “Speaking of hearsay and speculation, why did you arrest Deborah?”
“I resent that.”
He could resent it all he wanted, but I had a better case against Amber than he could possibly have against Deborah.
Werner put away his notes.
“I have reason to believe that Jasmine Updike was blackmailing Mrs. Vancortland into letting her live with them, into acting like she, Mrs. Vancortland, liked Jasmine better than Sherry, and ultimately into helping Jasmine become her son’s bride.”
“Blackmail,” I said. “Good motive. I didn’t see that one coming.” One for the Wiener.
Werner’s expression said he thought he’d topped me. “Mrs. Vancortland also has a prescription for the antianxiety drugs that were found in Jasmine’s system.”
I read his body language and decided to call his bluff. “How many people at Sherry and Justin’s engagement party have prescriptions for the same antianxiety drug?”
“Damn it, Madeira. If it’s a thorn, you’re going to find it. And if I’m not bleeding from it, you’re going to push on it until I do.”
“Ouch. Too many, I take it?”
“Seventeen, including the doctor who prescribed it for most of them.”
No point in shoving the thorn deeper. “So what did Jasmine have on Deborah?”
“We found a copy of a document that could be construed as incriminating—we’re still investigating—taped to the back of a painting in Jasmine’s room at Vancortland house.”
“Could be incriminating?” I repeated.
Werner leaned back in his seat. “We also found an unsigned, ‘I know what you did last summer’ kind of note. It outlines the way Jasmine was being fawned over by Deborah, but it doesn’t have either of their names on it. It might be enough, though, to use as a trigger,” Werner said, almost to himself.
Nick had explained triggers to me on the plane. I thought of my sketches. “So what does Deborah have to say about your . . . evidence of sorts?”
“Mrs. Vancortland isn’t talking. She lawyered up and made bail. Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that we found a tourist who e-mailed us snapshots of your sister and Vancortland in the boathouse. My experts say they’re genuine and not computer enhanced. I made some wallet-sized. You want one?”
I pushed on his arm. “For a cop, you’re a rat.”
He sighed. “I apologize. Out of nowhere, I seem to get these throwback urges to be vengeful and obnoxious. Let’s stick to the facts and be adults about this. My evidence is better than your evidence.”
“If I don’t agree, you’ll take your toys and go home?”
Nick cleared his throat and Werner said nothing.
Ignoring Nick’s warning, I took out my sketches, put them in order, and showed them to Werner.
Without a word, he looked them over with the discerning eye of a detective, and while he did, I told him the story of each.
Werner shook his head. “How could Jasmine know about Deborah getting Pearl Morales out of Cort’s life?”
“From her mother?” I suggested. “Mildred was Deborah’s nurse shortly after she married Cort.”
Werner grunted as if he’d known that. I showed him that sketch but he barely looked at it.
“The town gossips say that Deborah was pregnant when she and Cort married, but Justin is too young to be that child.”
Another grunt, as Werner flipped through the sketches for the third time as we crossed the state line into Connecticut. He turned to me. “Did you get these from the Morales family? Were they Pearl’s?”
Nick unbuckled his seat belt and turned all the way around to watch me try to escape the web I’d spun myself into, his seat-belt reminder beeping a warning.
I kept myself from exchanging glances with him. “Lytton, what matters is that I have this information, not where it comes from.”
“Not true. Depending on your source, these could be used as evidence. Are they evidence?”
“They’re not,” I said. “They’re as good as your vague and unsigned documents
against Deborah, pretty much worthless.”
Lytton turned into an interrogator before my eyes, slapping one handful of sketches against the other. A bit of subtle intimidation. “Madeira, who drew these sketches?”
I decided to heed Nick’s warning. “I hardly know the person who sketched those pictures. Some sort of psychic who would lose credibility if I gave you a name.”
True? Of course, true.
“I’ve hurt enough people in my life,” I added, making a point Werner could appreciate.
He rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn’t going to push me further. “Billings?” he said to his driver. “You didn’t hear this conversation. If you did, you’ve got a desk job.”
“Hear what, Sergeant?”
I crossed my arms and schooled my features to hide my relief.
“Madeira, I think the pepper spray episode might have been the high point of our relationship.”
“What relationship?”
Nick coughed.
Werner shook his head. “So, there’s no way to prove either of our theories.”
“There might be,” I said. “I have an idea. It’s a long shot, but it’s an idea.”
Twenty-nine
Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.—COCO CHANEL
“Let’s go,” I told my father and sister as I hung up the phone the following morning. “Against all odds, Werner has agreed to my idea, or a version of it, anyway. Dad, I’ll call Nick while you drive.”
My dad and Sherry were quiet on the drive to the Cortland House. Nervous anticipation made us all somber. Luckily, the trip was short and soon we were pulling up in front of the gaudy mansion. Just behind us, Werner drove up in a squad car with Amber in handcuffs in the back. She’d been arrested for kidnapping Sherry, of course, but evidently, no one had seen fit to bail her out.
When a second cruiser arrived with a woman carrying a toddler, Werner uncuffed Amber, and she ran toward the child, who opened her arms and called her “Momma”.
Nick’s car was making its way up the drive.
Werner came to meet me. “That’s the little girl’s nanny,” he explained. “I didn’t want to get Children’s Services involved if your information is correct and Vancortland is the toddler’s grandfather. If so, it’s a given, he’ll get custody until after Ms. Delgado serves time for kidnapping your sister.”
Evidently, Werner still believed that Deborah had murdered Jasmine. And the more I watched Amber, the more I tended to agree with him.
Nick joined us as Amber, holding her daughter, looked up at Cortland House, raised her chin, and walked to the front door as if she belonged there, which she did.
I could see Cort in her. Tall, graceful, his classic bone structure. A born aristocrat. I saw her mother in her, too, and kicked myself for not noticing the resemblance sooner. The pearlescent skin, dark hair, those dark, gorgeous features. Beauty incarnate. No wonder she and Cort had been sizing each other up at Sherry and Justin’s engagement party.
Cort had probably wondered who she reminded him of, but I was betting that Amber knew she was looking at her father, possibly for the first time.
I felt bad for her. Deborah would be a formidable opponent, if this scheme ran anywhere near my original idea.
Werner introduced us to a psychologist, a white-haired gentleman. “Ms. Delgado’s in another world,” he said. “No emotion. No admission of guilt. No admission of any kind except that her mother had taken the name Delgado to pretend that she wasn’t an unwed mother.”
He regarded me and nodded toward Werner. “The detective here mentioned that you, Miss Cutler, think she might have seen your sister’s engagement announcement. That could have triggered a mental relapse, given her theoretical background. At any rate, I’d like to observe her as she confronts her mother’s past.”
“And I’d like to catch the killer,” Werner said, eyeing Amber at the front door. “Let’s get this done.”
Cort, Justin, Deborah, and their lawyer waited for us in the foyer.
“This is highly irregular,” the lawyer said.
“Shut up, William,” Cort said, watching Amber with confused interest, or staggering recognition. “Pay attention. If we need you, we’ll let you know.”
“No, Cort,” Deborah said. “This isn’t a good—”
“Deborah . . .” Cort warned.
She raised her chin but said nothing.
“Detective Werner, can you make the introductions?” Cort asked, not taking his gaze from Amber’s, or her child’s.
Werner introduced us all around, names only, without titles or relationships. Amber’s name meant nothing to Cort. That was apparent.
He took control. “Come in then,” he said. “I had the small drawing room prepared. Plain. Comfortable. Nice view.”
There, Werner encouraged everyone to sit, though he remained standing. “I have information that I’d like Miss Delgado and Mrs. Vancortland to interpret.”
Deborah rose. “I have no connection to this girl and I don’t see the point of—”
Werner snapped his fingers and two uniformed officers flanked Deborah before she could say another word. “This is a murder investigation, Mrs. Vancortland,” Werner reminded her, “a murder for which you’ve been arrested.”
She sat down and turned to her lawyer.
“Don’t look at William, Deborah,” Cort said. “Look at me and cooperate.”
I wished I was anywhere but here. My heart never sped so fast. Well, maybe when I found Jasmine’s body, and at the police station when they took Sherry for questioning. What if the visions were figments of my certifiable imagination? Could they cause more harm than good? Fiona said I had a psychic gift, and I trusted her, but I didn’t trust my so-called gift. I wondered if I ever would.
Nick covered my hand and squeezed, sensing my nervousness, I suppose. We’d always been in tune. That’s why we sparked off each other.
“I feel like I’m in an Agatha Christie novel,” I whispered, “with all the suspects gathered in the living room.”
Nick leaned closer. “Except that in this version nobody has any evidence. Who’s Werner? Hercule Poirot?”
“He must be. I’m not old enough to be Miss Marple, and it doesn’t look like they’re serving tea.”
The look Werner shot us put period to our silly speculation. I was nervous, or I never would have given in to it. This was our only shot.
Werner’s men brought in a corkboard easel on which a couple of my drawings were pinned: the one with my first vision of Pearl in the gown, and the one where Deborah sent Pearl packing for good.
Cort sat forward as he examined them.
Deborah looked away and covertly covered one trembling hand with the other.
Amber had style, though she had dressed in a plain black tube dress today, her pearl earrings a complement to the dark hair waving away from her ears, almost to showcase the earrings.
My heart stilled. Her swan pearl earrings. Pearl’s earrings.
Cort’s gaze shifted from the picture of Pearl in her wedding dress, to Amber, and back.
Werner’s gaze encompassed everyone in the room. “I’d like Miss Delgado and Mrs. Vancortland, in turn, to each have an opportunity to speak. After they’ve both addressed the pictures, if they’d like to debate the implications, so be it. Miss Delgado, will you begin?”
Amber stood, cool, collected, in control, and gave her daughter, well-worn board book in hand, to her nanny. Good. The child was well occupied.
Deborah controlled her slight tremble as she scratched the polish off her perfect manicure, her gaze darting about the room, a sign that her mind ran in every direction.
Was she searching for an escape?
Amber pointed to the first sketch. “This is my mother, Pearl Morales Delgado. She worked here. She fell in love here and became engaged to the master’s son. This house is where I was conceived. Before her wedding, in this picture, my mother was told to go away from here.�
�
Deborah opened her mouth and Werner raised a hand to stop her.
Amber eyed Deborah with a look that could kill, but she didn’t speak until she had all our attention once more. “My mother was sent away by the woman the master married. You, Mrs. Vancortland.”
Deborah couldn’t know that Amber’s words might exonerate her from a murder charge. It wouldn’t work if she did, and whatever the outcome, the cost to her could be life-altering.
“My mother,” Amber said. “She lived the last years of her life calling herself the throwaway bride. She mourned for her wedding gown, her wedding day, but more than anything, she mourned the loss of her bridegroom, the love of her life. She had no interest in getting up from childbed, so my aunt came to live with us and care for us. When I was seven, my mother died calling my father’s name. ‘Cort.’ Always, ‘Cort.’”
I squeezed Nick’s hand and swallowed my emotions. I didn’t know who looked more thunderstruck, Cort, Justin, or Deborah, though Deborah certainly looked the most frightened.
Amber’s daughter began asking for her mother, so Amber took her from the nanny, approached Cort, and handed him the child. “Here, Papa, your granddaughter. Her name is Vanessa. Vanessa Vancortland Delgado. I gave her the name that she would never bear otherwise. You will hold her while I explain the pictures?”
Cort nodded, barely, and Vanessa became quietly intrigued by him.
Amber seemed to stand outside herself, while Cort held the child so he could see her face. He touched a tiny hand to his lips, his granddaughter’s, while tears slid down his cheeks and covered those small fingers. “What have I done?” he said to himself, though everyone heard.
At the easel like a robot, any passion long drained from her, Amber examined the sketch of my first vision. “This is well done, but whoever depicted the room forgot the Majolica jardinière on its matching stand. The colors run together, blues, yellows, greens, so bright and alive. I remember how much I loved it.”
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