For Whom The Funeral Bell Tolls

by Livia J. Washburn

  I looked at him and said, "Matt, did you kill Walter Harvick?"

  "Absolutely not!" The answer came back quick and steady. "I'd never do anything like that."

  "You'll have to convince the police the same way you convinced me."

  He nodded glumly. "I can do that. I hope."

  Aimee said, "There's one thing you can do to help him, Ms. Dickinson. Find the real killer. Then everybody will know that Matt's not guilty."

  I shook my head. "I told you, honey, I'm not really a detective – "

  "But you solved those other crimes! I know you can solve this one, too."

  Matt said, "Aimee, that's not fair – "

  "I don't care about fair!" she burst out. "I just don't want my husband locked up in prison!"

  I couldn't argue with that sentiment. Aimee looked so scared and miserable that without thinking about what I was saying, I told her, "All right, I'll see what I can find out."

  "You will?" she gave me a shaky smile, then stepped forward and leaned over to give me a spontaneous hug. "Thank you, Ms. Dickinson. I'm sure you'll find out who really killed poor Mr. Harvick."

  Matt said, "I don't know that I'd call him poor Mr. Harvick. Just because he's dead now doesn't mean he was any less of a jerk when he was alive."

  "I don't think I'd let the cops hear me say anything like that, if I was you," Tom advised him dryly.

  "You're right, I won't." He turned to me and went on, "Thanks, Ms. Dickinson. I appreciate anything you can do to help me. You still think I ought to go to the police and tell them what I know?"

  "I do," I said with a nod. "In fact, if Detective Zimmer is still around, I'll go with you to talk to him. Just let me go upstairs and put on some clothes first."

  Tom said, "We're not going back to the pool?" He sounded a little disappointed, which sort of pleased me.

  "I'm afraid not. But I'll take a rain check."

  "I'll hold you to that," he said.

  That sounded good, especially the part about him holding me.

  * * *

  The conversation with Matt and Aimee Altman hadn't really changed anything about what I was doing, I thought as I got into a pair of Capri pants and a blouse. Even though I'd denied it, even to myself, I'd been trying to figure out what had happened to Walter Harvick ever since I'd seen his body lying on the beach. Even when his death appeared to be suicide, I'd been trying to figure out why he would have killed himself.

  So the fact that I'd promised Aimee Altman I'd investigate . . . well, I was already doing just that, wasn't I?

  Maybe I wouldn't say anything about it to Detective Zimmer, though. No point in throwing it in his face.

  I'd told Matt I would meet him and Aimee in the lobby. When I got down there, they were waiting, looking nervous. I didn't blame them for that. I thought we could make Zimmer listen to reason, but there was no guarantee of that.

  Luke was there with them, keeping an eye on them. I had asked him, discreetly, to do that so they wouldn't panic and do something crazy like try to get away from the resort, the way Phil and Sheila Thompson had. He gave me an unobtrusive nod to let me know that there hadn't been any trouble. I didn't see Tom anywhere, but the door of his office was closed so I thought he might be in there. Despite the murder, there was still work to be done in order to keep the resort running smoothly.

  "All right, you two," I told the Altmans. "Are you ready to do this?"

  "No," Matt said, "but I don't think I'll ever be ready, so we might as well go ahead and get it over with."

  They went up the stairs hand in hand, clinging to each other for support. That was sweet. It wouldn't last, I thought with the inevitable disillusionment of middle age, but for right now it was sweet indeed and I sort of envied them.

  An officer was still standing outside the door of the Thompsons' room. When we came up to him, I asked, "Is Detective Zimmer inside?"

  "Just a minute," he said. He opened the door and disappeared inside the room. A moment later Zimmer's burly form filled the doorway.

  "What is it, Ms. Dickinson?" he asked. His gaze flicked past me to Matt and Aimee and his eyes narrowed slightly.

  "The Altmans and I need to talk to you, Detective," I said. "It has to do with the case."

  "I've already glanced at their statement," Zimmer said. "Seemed pretty straightforward."

  Matt said, "I lied, Detective."

  I wished he hadn't phrased it quite so bluntly, but there it was and the words couldn't be called back now. Zimmer's eyes narrowed even more, and he said, "We've just about wrapped up the search of this room, so maybe we'd better go somewhere else and talk about this."

  "Did you find anything?" I asked, not really expecting him to answer me.

  He didn't. He just said, "Come on. We'll go down to Mr. Bradenton's office."

  With that tone of voice and the glare on his face, there was no arguing with him. We went.

  Chapter 23

  A few minutes earlier I had thought that Tom might be in his office, but he wasn't. It was empty, we found when Detective Zimmer knocked on the door and then opened it when he didn't get any response. Tom had given him permission to use it, though, so he waved us in and followed behind us, closing the door firmly.

  "Now what's all this about lying to the police?" he asked as he went around the desk.

  "I didn't really mean to," Matt said. "I just got scared."

  "Matt would never do anything wrong," Aimee said. "He's very honest and law-abiding. He doesn't speed or talk on his cell phone in school zones or anything."

  "Murder's a little more serious than that," Zimmer said.

  Matt nodded. "I know. That's why I decided I had to tell you what happened."

  Zimmer folded his arms across his chest, scowled, and said, "Go ahead."

  Matt swallowed hard, then launched into the story. Zimmer listened expressionlessly. Matt finally said, "That's all there was to it, Detective. I went back to our cottage and didn't see Mr. Harvick after that. I still haven't . . . and if the rumors I've heard about what happened to him are right, I'm glad I haven't."

  "You and Walter Harvick had a fight yesterday," Zimmer rumbled.

  "It wasn't really a fight," Aimee said. "Just some harsh words, that's all."

  Zimmer ignored her and continued staring at Matt. "Then you had a fight with your wife last night. Sounds to me like you're a pretty hot-tempered guy, Mr. Altman."

  "He's not," Aimee said. "Not at all. He's the sweetest, gentlest man on earth."

  "You sure about that, ma'am?"

  Aimee drew herself up straighter. She looked like she didn't appreciate having her words challenged like that.

  "Of course I'm sure," she snapped. "I'm married to him, aren't I? I ought to know better than anyone what he's like."

  "There have been plenty of marriages that have proven that theory wrong."

  I couldn't help but agree with Zimmer about that. My own divorce had been fairly amicable, but things had come out during the course of it that I hadn't known about my ex-husband, and I was sure he felt the same way about me.

  Zimmer turned his attention back to Matt. "You said you ran into Harvick near the stable. What was he doing?"

  "I don't know. Just walking along. He may have been out for a stroll, too."

  That was possible. If Walter hadn't been able to sleep, he might have slipped out for some exercise, rather than tossing and turning and disturbing Ronnie.

  That didn't really seem likely to me, though. As tightly wound as Walter had appeared to be during the short time I knew him, he struck me as the sort who always had a reason for what he was doing, no matter what it was. He wouldn't be walking aimlessly.

  "And what did he do after the two of you exchanged greetings?"

  "I told you, I turned around and went back to the cottage. I don't have any idea what he did. The area isn't very well lit at night. Anyway, I didn't look back. I was anxious to get back to Aimee."

  "Ready to kiss and make up, eh?" Zimmer shook his
head and raised a hand. "Sorry, that was unprofessional of me. Why didn't you tell the truth about all this when the officer questioned you?"

  "Because I knew you'd probably heard about the little fracas as the Hemingway House. I was afraid I'd get blamed for Mr. Harvick's death."

  Aimee said, "You can see why he'd feel that way, can't you, Detective?"

  Zimmer ignored her. He glared at Matt and asked, "Is there anything else you want to tell me, Mr. Altman?"

  Matt took a deep breath and shook his head. "No, that's it. I've told you everything that happened . . . and I have to admit, it feels good to get it off my chest."

  I said to Zimmer, "You won't be able to use any of that, you know. You didn't give him any sort of Miranda warning and he didn't have a lawyer present."

  "This wasn't an official interrogation," Zimmer said. "I'm still just trying to find out what happened."

  "I hope this helps," Matt said. "At least now you know that Mr. Harvick was still alive between two and three o'clock, and that he was over by the stable."

  Zimmer grunted dismissively, as if to say that he didn't know if that would help or not. He said to Matt and Aimee, "The two of you can go. Just don't leave the resort, like before."

  "Thank you, Detective," Aimee said. "I'm so glad you believe Matt – "

  "Come on, Aimee," Matt said, taking her arm to steer her out of the office before she could gush any more.

  I started to follow them, but Zimmer said, "Not you, Ms. Dickinson."

  I stopped and looked back at him, surprised that he wasn't letting me go, too. "What is it, Detective?"

  "Close the door."

  I closed the door behind Matt and Aimee. Zimmer sank into the chair behind the desk and motioned for me to sit down, too. When I had, he said, "What do you think of young Altman's story?"

  "You're askin' my opinion?"

  "That sheriff's department investigator from Georgia you mentioned, Timothy Farrady, called me back a little while ago. He said you'd be liable to drive me absolutely crazy, but that you were pretty smart and had good instincts. Farraday seemed to know what he was talking about, so I'll ask you again . . . do you believe Altman?"

  "Yeah, I do," I replied without hesitation. "Before all this happened, he was a little cocky and arrogant, but he seemed like a basically decent kid. They both do."

  "So young."

  "Yes, they are."

  "Bonnie and Clyde were young," Zimmer mused.

  "Matt and Aimee Altman are no Bonnie and Clyde."

  He actually smiled at that. "No, they're not. It looks bad, him lying like he did the first time around, but I guess it's understandable."

  A thought had occurred to me, so I said, "You know, Matt's not the only one who had trouble with Walter at the Hemingway House."

  "You're talking about Rollie Cranston."

  "That's right." I hated to throw suspicion on Rollie, who had seemed to be a fairly likable sort of guy, if not my type. But I could see him killing Walter a lot easier than I could see Matt Altman in that role.

  "And Cranston had a run-in with Harvick at Sloppy Joe's the night before last, too," Zimmer went on.

  "He sure did. Walter put him on his knees." I thought about what Zimmer had said earlier about the killer making Walter beg for his life. "Maybe Rollie decided to return the favor."

  "That's a good theory. Unfortunately, after you left him last night, Cranston picked up a 35-year-old librarian from Illinois and spent the night with her at the Hyatt. She was pretty adamant that Cranston was in bed with her during the window of time in which Harvick was killed, and there are witnesses among the hotel staff who saw him there before and after that, too."

  Somehow I wasn't surprised. Rollie probably had plenty of success picking up female tourists with his Hemingway lookalike bit. His alibi sounded unshakable.

  "Then if we rule out Rollie Cranston, and we believe Matt Altman's story and the business about Phil and Sheila Thompson's treasure hunting, where does that leave us?" I asked.

  "Us?" Zimmer repeated dryly.

  "You're the one who told me to stay behind and then asked my opinion about Matt's story. Seems to me like we're workin' together."

  "I prefer to think of it as picking your brain," he said. "Consider yourself an unofficial consultant. We're not partners or anything like that."

  "Fine by me, Detective," I told him.

  "Then as a consultant, can you think of any reason for Walter Harvick to be going to the stable at three o'clock in the morning?"

  "Not a blasted one," I said.

  He grimaced. "That's what I was afraid of. Neither can I. But I'm going to take a walk over there anyway and have a look around, to see if anything suggests itself to me. Would you like to come along?"

  "I don't have anything better to do."

  That wasn't strictly true. Lying by the pool and getting sunscreen rubbed on me by Tom Bradenton would be a lot better, or at least a lot more enjoyable.

  But it would be even more fun if Zimmer and I could figure out who had killed Walter and lift the cloud of suspicion that was hanging over the resort, I told myself.

  We left the office. I looked around the lobby for Luke but didn't see him. I could have called him and asked him to come along, but there didn't seem to be any real point to that. Nor did Tom seem to be around, so Zimmer and I set out across the grounds on our own.

  "I haven't even been to the stable," I told him as we followed a weather-aged wooden sign with an arrow carved into it and took one of the many paths that led through the veritable forest of palm trees.

  "You're not interested in horseback riding?" he asked.

  "The last time I was on a horse was at an elementary school carnival when I was seven years old," I said with a laugh. "And I didn't particularly enjoy it then."

  "I thought all little girls were crazy for horses."

  "I guess I was an odd little girl. I did have a unicorn phase, though, which is sort of the same, I suppose."

  "Much more phallic."

  "Good Lord, Detective, are you flirtin' with me?"

  "No, ma'am," he said hastily. "I apologize."

  "Well, there's no need to go that far. I don't offend easily."

  After a moment, Zimmer said, "Murder offends me."

  "Me, too," I agreed solemnly. "Maybe we'll find some answers."

  But we didn't. We poked all around the stable, which were fairly small and held stalls for six horses. A female groom in her mid-twenties was working there, running a comb over one of the two horses still in their stalls. She explained that the other four mounts were being ridden by guests of the resort at the moment.

  She pointed to a path that led back to the left and said, "That's our riding trail. It winds around for about a quarter of a mile and then goes down to the beach. That's where people do most of their riding."

  "Not today, though," I said. "It's off-limits."

  "Actually, it's not anymore," Zimmer said. "The crime scene team was finished, so I ordered the tape taken down a little while ago. I imagine it's starting to get pretty busy down there. People never let a little morbid curiosity keep them away."

  "More likely to draw them there," I muttered.

  The groom showed us all around the stable, which included the stalls, a tack room, and a storage room where feed was kept in tightly closed metal and plastic containers so that rats and mice couldn't get into it. All the boat traffic up and down the Keys in centuries past insured that every island had a certain amount of vermin on it.

  "Were you the first one here this morning?" Zimmer asked the groom.

  She nodded and said, "Yes, I got here not long after sun-up to tend to the horses."

  "Was there anything out of place or unusual that you noticed?"

  She shook her head. "Sorry, Detective. Everything looked perfectly normal."

  Zimmer looked like he wanted to sigh in frustration, but he just nodded and said, "Thank you."

  As we walked back toward the main house, I said,
"Back where we started from again."

  "Maybe . . . but everything we eliminate narrows the field that much more."

  "We didn't eliminate anything," I pointed out. "We didn't find any reason for Walter to be going to the stable in the middle of the night."

  "No, we didn't," he admitted. "There doesn't seem to be a reason behind any of this. But there is. We just haven't found it yet."

  Once again I felt a little jab of something in my brain, an almost physical sensation that told me I had overlooked something. But when I concentrated and searched hard in the recesses of my mind, nothing new came to light. Whatever the thing was, it was still hiding from me.

  "I need to go check in," Zimmer said when we reached the house. "You'll be around?"

  "Where else am I going to be? You haven't said that anybody can leave yet."

  "I know." He sighed. "But sooner or later I'll have to. And the more time goes by, the harder it'll be to find the answers we need."

  I knew he was right about that. I lifted a hand in farewell and then went into the house while he headed for the parking lot.

  I still didn't see Luke or Tom in the lobby. I went over to Tom's office. The door was open a couple of inches the way we'd left it. I pushed it open the rest of the way and saw the vacant chair behind the desk.

  I didn't feel like going up to my room, and I didn't think he would mind me waiting for him here, so I went in and sat down behind the desk. I'd been there only a minute when the map of the Keys on the wall caught my eye again. I stood up and went over to look at it. My hand came up and my fingertips brushed lightly over the long curve of islands leading from the Dry Tortugas to Key West and on up the Keys to Miami.

  Was the answer somewhere in there? It had to be, but I sure couldn't see it.

  I turned my attention to a bookshelf that stood on the other side of the office. I had noticed it earlier, but I hadn't really paid any attention to the books in it. I wandered over there now and studied the titles. Most of them were non-fiction, I saw, and a majority of them had to do with Key West or the Florida Keys in general. I could tell by the bindings that quite a few of them were old, dating back to the Thirties and even earlier. One that had to be at least a hundred years old was titled The History of Wrecking and Salvage Operations in the Florida Keys by an author I'd never heard of, John B. Boothe. There was a guide to Key West put together by the Works Progress Administration in the Forties and even what appeared to be a privately printed history of the Bradenton family. I wondered if they were mentioned in that old book about wreckers and salvagers, but it looked so brittle I didn't want to go paging through it.