"Of course. Well, girls, Verger's disappearance has made a mare's nest of his affairs, as you might imagine."
"Who inherits?" Quill asked.
"That's not the right question," Meg said flatly. "The right question is, who is in control of Taylor Incorporated now?"
"Ernst has full authority," Birdie said, "and he's assured us that everything is going to be handled exactly the way Verger wants it until he gets back."
Meg sat down at the table. "Can Ernst buy and sell any of Taylor's assets?"
"Oh, I don't believe so." Bea looked alarmed at this. "Ernst is a wonderful man, but no one has the talent Verger has. The man's a genius. If Verger's truly gone, then it's time for us to pull our investments out."
"You're selling off your investments in Taylor Incorporated, then?" Meg asked.
"The new ventures, absolutely," said Bea firmly. "That was the very first thing we did last night, after we heard, wasn't it, Birdie? But the existing ones are quite sound, or so Ernst informs me. So we're making no changes there."
Birdie raised her plucked eyebrows. "At any rate, poor Ernst has his hands full, what with trying to do things the way that Verger would want and keeping the empire - that's what Verger always called it, the empire - intact. And he wondered if you two would stay on for a bit. Keep the institute up and running. It's absolute chaos over there-as a matter of fact, that's where Ernst is right now. The place needs a manager, Quill, just for a couple of months. And Chef Jean Paul, Meg, absolutely will not come out of the bread closet."
"What about the chicken people?" Quill asked.
"Oh, that deal wasn't signed. And if it wasn't signed, Ernst said, there's nothing he can do about it. The chicken people are all upset, of course, and as I understand it, Bea, am I right? There was talk of court..."
"Court," Bea echoed. Her mouth was full of brioche.
"... if Ernst doesn't let them occupy the building by a certain date. But that's not going anywhere, Ernst says."
"Let me see if I understand this," Meg said. "As long as Verger is alive, the institute remains in the same state it was in yesterday. That is, no chicken people."
"That's right. And you know who had the idea that you two might help us out for a month or two?" Birdie's eyes were bright. "No, wait. Let me show you what you'll be paid if you accept." She drew a gold Mont Blanc pen from her purse and a pocket notepad. She wrote a number down, then showed it to Meg. "That's each," she said impressively.
Meg tossed the pad to Quill, who took it, read the figure, and managed to keep her face devoid (she hoped) of expression. It was a lot of money.
"Now, guess who made this offer?" Bea said.
"Cressida Houghton," Meg said.
"That's right!" Bea smiled with hope. "So you'll do it? You'll take over pro tern, as it were, until Verger is back at the helm?"
"No other message?" asked Meg sweetly. "From Ms. Houghton, I mean? About not testifying against her poor dear boys? Or dropping the charges of assault and attempted murder? Nothing like that?"
"Of course not." Indignation shook Bea from the top of her dyed brown hair to her Bruno Magli shoes.
"Well, we decline," said Meg. She sprang up and walked rapidly back to the center island. Her lips were a thin line in her rigid face. "Thanks all the same."
"No, we don't," Quill said. "You tell Ms. Houghton that we're seriously considering her offer." She ignored Meg's yelp.
Bea patted Quill's bare ann. Her hand was soft and trembled slightly. Quill, looking at her closely, thought that she and Birdie must be well over seventy. Plastic surgery, laser therapy, vitamins-all those things could disguise the outer envelope. But nothing medicine had come up with yet could change a person's eyes. And Bea's eyes were old.
"We knew you'd help out. Well." She rose from the table with a smile. "Come, Birdie. We'll brave that crowd out there and just make our exercise class, if we're lucky."
"They won't pay any attention to old ladies like us, Bea. Goodbye, girls. Don't get up. We'll see ourselves out. Will you two be here when we get back?"
"Here?" Quill asked blankly.
"The first of Dr. Bob's therapy sessions is going to be here at noon. Isn't it, Bea?"
"That's right."
"Here?" Meg shrieked.
"Tiffany thought it would be best." Birdie's shrewd old eyes twinkled. "The reporters know how to get here, you see. And she made an arrangement with Luis."
"Swell," Meg said darkly. "That's just swell."
"We'll see you then, I hope. Twelve sharp. Come along, Bea."
"Goodbye," Quill said. "Oh, Birdie? Did you happen to catch the name of the psychiatrist treating Corrigan Taylor?"
"Dr. Bittern, of course. He's quite qualified. Quite." Meg waited until the front door had closed, then picked up the dirty plates and threw them one by one, with great precision, against the refrigerator door. Quill watched her, arms folded. When the last plate had smashed, Meg bent over and methodically picked them up and disposed of them in the pail underneath the sink. "There," she said briskly. "Now I feel better. Any ideas about what to do next?"
"Oh, yes," Quill said. "Make a call on Verger Taylor's lawyer and attend Dr. Bittern's therapy session. I want to find out what's behind this bribe. And I'm very interested in Dr. Bittern's future plans."
"Tell me, what do you think really happened at Verger Taylor's mansion yesterday?"
"We've got two facts and a supposition. The facts are that we last saw Verger Taylor at six-thirty. The maid confirms he came home at six thirty-five and that the break-in occurred very shortly after. The shooting couldn't have taken more than ten minutes. The devil with the creaky shoes..."
"Maria didn't say creaky shoes. She said snap-snap-snap."
"... anyway, we didn't arrive at Cressida Houghton's until well after seven. From the map, though, Verger's is actually a short walk down the beach, so the boys could've waited for Verger, killed him, and jogged back on home well in time for our invited arrival at seven-fifteen. That's fact one.
"Fact two is that the bridge game so cleverly laid out for us was a ruse, copied directly from the winning grand slam in yesterday's paper."
"I don't think I'd call that a fact," Meg objected.
"I haven't drawn any conclusions yet, Meg! Now the supposition is that the boys were acting when they got that call from the so-called kidnapper."
"I know we can't prove it, Quill, but I'll be damned if that was acting."
"I agree with you. I think the kidnapper was the fire-breathing demon that opened the door on Maria and shut it. The kidnapping was separate from the murder. Frankly, I'm so convinced that, at least as working hypothesis, we're going to call it a fact. Okay? And I think the basic scenario is this:
"Evan and Corrigan Taylor planned a home invasion for the express purpose of killing their father and leaving his body for the authorities to find. Someone else came along, found the body, and disposed of it. For a reason we haven't discovered yet, the body snatcher can't have Verger Taylor dead."
"So who's got the best motive?" Quill continued rhetorically. "First, there's Chef Jean Paul. If he knew that the deal with Southern Fried wasn't completed yet, he'd have a chance at finding someone else to run his believed instituted."
"I doubt it, Quill. Chef Jean Paul is just like those rabbits. Timid and good only for cooking. Besides, I know three restaurants in New York that would hire Jean Paul in two seconds flat. For an enormous sum of money."
"Okay... let's accept that Jean Paul had a motive, but not a compelling one. What about the shrink? Dr. Bittern knew that Verger had made up his mind to prevent Tiffany from going forward with his multimillion-dollar project."
"Again - it's a motive, but not a compelling one. And besides, the man no idiot. He'd get the same result with Verger dead as Verger missing. Why go to the risk of concealing the body?"
"True," Quill said. "Linda Longstreet, who had the same motive as Chef Jean Paul."
"She's out of it," Meg said. "If she's a mu
rderer, then I'm Paul Bunyan."
"You're right."
"I love it when you say I'm right."
"What about Tiffany?"
They looked at each other and said simultaneously, "Nah."
Meg giggled. "She made it pretty clear yesterday she was much better off being his combative ex-wife. Plus, she's got that spa alibi. You know, Quill, there's another suspect."
"Ernst Kolsacker? According to Birdie and Bea, he doesn't benefit in any way from Verger's disappearance. I can see where his death might benefit him - he could run Taylor Incorporated for a while, but my gosh, guys like that swap corporate jobs all over the country. Like Chef Jean Paul, Ernst could get a good job almost anywhere. Besides, if Birdie's accurate - and have you noticed how sharp she is about money, Meg?"
"No! Really?"
"It's amazing, isn't it? It's how the rich stay rich, I guess. Anyhow, unless we can turn up some reason for Ernst to benefit by Verger's being alive, but out of the picture, then I vote we table him as the body snatcher."
"Agreed. I wasn't thinking so much of Ernst as Mr. X."
Quill groaned.
"I'm serious. That business with the Murex stock bouncing up and down like that is curious, very curious. And you know what? I was so curious I looked at the business section of the paper this morning to track it." Meg reached under the counter and brought out the Palm Beach Post. "See that paragraph?"
" `The alleged kidnapping of real estate tycoon Verger Taylor has resulted in a suspension of the buyout of Murex Limited,' " Quill read.
"This news won't hit the Street... "
"The Street?" Quill said. "You mean as in Wall Street?"
"Go ahead. Mock. You'll mock on the other side of your mouth if I'm right. Anyhow, the news hasn't hit Wall Street or the stock exchange yet, but when it does..."
"When it does, what/"
Meg's lower lip stuck out and she scratched her head. "I don't know enough yet. But I want to check it out."
"Okay, but I think there's something even more important than our tracking down suspects in this case."
"What's that?"
"Finding Verger Taylor's body."
"Quill, there's no way we can do that. It's a job for the police. And it may not happen for years. It may not happen ever."
"Then we've got to find out who took the body, if not where it is. Because if we don't, we're going to have Cressida Houghton as an enemy for life. And it's good-bye to the inn and our reputations."
"Not to mention hello to our three-hundred-fifty-three-thousand-dollar mortgage. Okay, we're ready. We're committed. We're going to find the body snatcher. Now what?"
Quill held up Verger Taylor's address book. "Jerry Fairchild. We have to giver this to the police. It's a terrific excuse to see how things are going from the police end. And then I think we should inquire about hiring ourselves a lawyer. And after that, I want to come back here and check out Dr. Bittern."
Meg, still on track with Quills' first suggestion about finding a lawyer said, "We've got a perfectly good lawyer...oh." She looked bemused. "You want to go to find out what Mr. Hawthorne knows?"
"The lawyer for the Houghtons? He won't tell us a thing. Now, Verger Taylor's lawyer? He might tell us a lot."
"Do we even know who Verger Taylor's lawyer is? Was? Whatever?"
Quill tapped the address book. "Franklin Carmichael, of West Palm Beach. It's on Poinsettia Road, which is about ten minutes from the police station. For heaven's sake, Meg, he attended your class with Ernst Kolsacker."
"And you said Dr. Bittern? I thought we crossed him off the list."
"You never know what a shrink knows, Meg. We've got to look him in the eye and find out if he's concealing guilty knowledge."
"Fine. There's not anything else to do today, with the institute closed."
Quill had thrown on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt when she'd gotten up, and she decided to change to a cotton dress. She talked Meg, who protested, into a skirt and blouse. They left the blinds and shades drawn and proceeded cautiously out the front door. The bulk of the reporters had given up; a few stringers hung out by Luis's office door. Quill stopped so fast that Meg plowed into her.
"Luis," she said, remembering the catastrophe the night before.
"The boat," Meg said. "You know, the amount of our bribe from Cressida would just about take care of a new boat for Luis."
They walked across the parking lot to the offices. Meg scowled horribly at the stringers, who scattered like seagulls. She rapped on the office door. Luis opened it.
"You!' he said. "One moment." He slammed the door.
Meg tried again, tapping lightly and calling, "Luis? Luis? We are really, really sorry about the boat."
He opened the door again, buttoning his Combers Beach Club coat. "I apologize," he said. "You caught me in my shirt sleeves." He stepped outside and waved to the reporters, who had retreated to a battered Ford Escort parked in the MANAGER ONLY spot. "You are both looking very pretty this morning," he said. "Would you like the Mercedes again?"
Quill put her hand gently on his arm. "Luis. We are so sorry about your grandfather's boat."
"It's fine. Don't worry. Grandfather had it insured." He beamed. "And I," he said, "have a book deal because you wrecked it."
"A book deal?"
"Well, part of one." He looked modest. "It is to be called The Taylor Tragedy: Blood, Sex, and Crime in Exotic South Florida. I am one chapter. Then there are the talk shows on television. For this, I get paid as well. America is wonderful, Miss Quilliam."
"America is wonderful," Quill mused, pulling into the police station some twenty minutes later. "Do you' suppose our wonderful police will believe that we got; Verger's appointment book from Tiffany? Will our wonderful justice system let Evan and Corrigan go free? Will we be arrested for the sake of making a better book?"
"If you're going to make a speech," Meg said, "I'm walking. And if you don't slow down, I'm walking. Just" drive, dammit."
Jerry Fairchild looked as if he hadn't slept at all the night before. He was unshaven, there were heavy bags under his eyes, and his expression was less than welcoming. "What do you two want now?" They were in his office, which was extremely neat and very clean.
"You probably won't believe us," Meg said belligerently, "but we genuinely forgot about this piece of evidence in all the brouhaha yesterday."
Jerry's expression softened a little. "What piece of evidence?"
Quill produced the address book. Jerry took it, flipped through it, came to Verger's rating system, and chuckled.
"I don't think it's funny." Meg crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest. This further evidence of bellicose behavior seemed to amuse the detective. "The man was a pig."
"But a successful pig." "You're not hollering at us for concealing evidence," Meg said suspiciously. "I'd feel a lot better if you hollered. What's the matter, Jer?"
He sighed. "I don't know what Verger Taylor's address book is going to tell me that I don't already know.
He had a few meetings the afternoon of the day he disappeared. We're interviewing the people he saw that day - most of them have come forward anyway. Anxious to cash in on the publicity. So consider yourselves hollered at." Jerry opened his left desk drawer, took out an evidence bag, slipped the book into it, and labeled it in neat, precise handwriting.
While he was engaged in this, Quill asked, "You think that the boys had an accomplice-that the clues to Verger Taylor's disappearance - "
"Murder," Jerry said shortly. "The motive for murder lies with his sons? And not in Verger's own activities? What did Evan and Corrigan do with the body?"
"You can buy anything you want around here," Jerry said. His eyes looked more tired than ever. "Want your grandmother raped? There's kids who will do it for five bucks and a bag of cocaine."
Quill didn't know how to reply to this. She had a glimpse of the day-to-day routine of this man's life, and it made her shudder. She asked quietly, "Did you really rece
ive another call from the kidnapper?"
"You saw the morning news."
"As a matter of fact, we didn't," Quill said.
"Yes. Hawthorne, that smart-ass lawyer for the Houghtons, got the call early this morning. He taped it. It sounded genuine, but then, the first one sounded genuine. That it, ladies? I've got work to do."
"We heard about Corrigan claiming his confession was coerced. That he's mentally unstable." Meg gave him her most appealing smile.
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