“Reeks,” Maud observed.
I nodded, concentrating on breathing shallowly through my mouth. Hart’s expression was grim. I’d read enough police procedurals to know what the odor likely meant. There was a body hidden in the car. I couldn’t imagine whose it could be. Had Van Allen had a partner Sharla hadn’t mentioned? She might not have known. As far as I knew, no one from Heaven had gone missing. The station wagon’s windows were tinted, and it had one of those pull-across screens that hid the contents of the back section from view. A sun visor lay across the dash. Hart tried all the doors, but they were locked. The Volkswagen was so ancient that he had no trouble popping the two front doors with a slim jim he took from his coat pocket. He left them ajar, letting the air circulate.
“You might want to stand back,” he said, inserting the tip of the crowbar under the lip of the station wagon’s access hatch.
I shuffled backward a few feet, but Maud inched in closer. Positioning the crowbar near the lock, Hart leaned into it. Metal creaked. Pumping on the tool, Hart put his whole weight into it. The lock popped with a screeching bang that made me jump. The hatch flew up, barely missing Hart’s chin. A wave of fetid, rotting air rolled out, almost viscous in its intensity. I gagged. Maud pulled a pot of Carmex from her pocket and calmly rubbed some beneath her nose. She offered the pot to me, but I declined. Hart found the release button that freed the screen drawn across the back of the station wagon and it sprang back, rolling up in its case.
At first I couldn’t process what I was seeing. The body was bloated and swollen. Its head was canted at an awkward angle and its fur matted with blood. It was a deer, a small doe, probably from this spring’s crop of fawns. I flopped over from the waist, giddy with relief that it wasn’t a human body. Hart circled the car again, bending over to inspect the grille, and then came over to put a hand on my back.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I thought it was going to be a body.”
“There’s front-end damage,” he said. “Van Allen must have hit the deer on his way to the Club. I guess he loaded it up, thinking to get some venison steaks out of it. Then, of course, he never came back and it’s been baking in the back of that wagon for a week. Damned if I know who to call about this. I need to search the car, but until that carcass is out of there, I’m not going near it.”
“I know a couple of guys,” Maud said, punching a number on her cell phone. “They’re dead-animal removers. Usually they deal with livestock, but I’m sure they can handle the deer.”
Maud’s guys said they’d come. I used the intervening half hour before they showed up to tell Hart about my encounter with the Stewarts, husband and wife, not brother and sister. He winced when I described them kissing, but looked interested when I told him they were legally married. “At least,” I added, “that’s what they say now. I suppose they could be lying about that, but I don’t know why they would. I’m ninety-nine percent convinced that they stole Eloise Hufnagle’s book, like she claims, and they’ve been doing this charade so she won’t connect them.”
“They’d have been smarter to stay away from each other completely,” Maud pointed out, “but I guess the newlyweds didn’t want to give up their, ahem, marital intimacies for what might be a year or more. So, they may well end up losing out on millions because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other for a few months. I’ll bet the disappointment and blaming takes more of a toll on their marriage than being separated would have.”
“You talk like it’s a foregone conclusion that Mary Stewart will lose the court case,” I said.
Maud gave me a pointed look. “I suspect word will get back to Eloise Hufnagle somehow, don’t you?”
Now that she put it that way, I did indeed think Eloise was likely to find out about the secret marriage. The words “secret marriage” made me think of gothic romances and I thought it ironic that Mary Stewart should be living out so many of the clichés of her genre.
When the knackers arrived, Maud and I strolled through the narrow greenbelt to the edge of the golf course. Clouds scudded the sky now, and I zipped my fleece jacket against the chill. I did not need to watch the doe being pulled out of the station wagon. Hart stayed, saying he had a responsibility to oversee the operation and safeguard any evidence. Once through the strand of scraggly oaks and small pines, Maud and I found ourselves midway down the fairway for the fourteenth hole with a clear view of the Club across another fairway and the eighteenth green.
“Wouldn’t have taken him more than seven, eight minutes to walk from here to the Club,” Maud said, narrowing her eyes to measure the distance. “Maybe ten in the dark.”
I tried to put myself in Van Allen’s place, imagining the walk across the manicured grass, dodging sand traps. He could enter the Club through the pro shop—I tried to remember what time it closed on a Saturday night—or walk around to the front. He had either bought a ticket for the gala earlier in the day, possibly from Gemma, or paid at the door. Once inside he had . . . what? Gotten a drink, helped himself to a plate of hors d’oeuvres, and gone searching for the person he had come to find. Had he set up a meeting, or had he just known the person would be there?
“It was prearranged,” Maud said when I asked her opinion. Her pale blue eyes looked almost gray in proximity to her gray Windbreaker. She still had it open, apparently unfazed by the cold and stiffening breeze. “He was going to trade whatever he had—information, photos, valuable object—for money and hightail it out of Colorado. Why take the risk of meeting the target twice?”
That made sense. “So he met up with his mark and they went to the office, or they had prearranged to meet in Wallace’s office, which would suggest a pretty good knowledge of the Club’s layout.”
Cocking her head, Maud gave it some thought. “I think the office was spur-of-the-moment, a deserted and quiet place to have a conversation and do the trade.”
“They couldn’t have done the trade there,” I pointed out. “Not if Van Allen left whatever it was in the station wagon. And I can’t see the blackmailee traipsing around the costume party lugging a briefcase or gym bag full of money. I can’t imagine Van Allen was prepared to take a check or a credit card.” I tried to remember if I’d seen anyone Saturday night with a duffel or a box, but no one came to mind.
“Okay,” Maud said. “So they were going to do the swap at the car. One of their cars. No one with half a brain would be willing to hike across the golf course to this lot with an ex-con, so my guess is that Van Allen was going to come back here, get the ‘package’”—she put air quotes around it—“and rendezvous with the mark at his or her car, where he’d get the money.”
“He wasn’t in costume, not masked,” I mused, “which seems to mean he didn’t mind the victim knowing who he was.”
“Interesting point,” Maud agreed, nodding.
Before we could dissect the events of Saturday night further, Hart called us back. We found him standing beside the station wagon, empty of everything except fluids and stench. We carefully positioned ourselves upwind, and I was suddenly grateful for the colder air and the gusty breeze. He had stripped off his sport coat and donned a white coverall that zipped up the front, paper booties, and a puffy cap like surgeons wear. I knew he wasn’t so much protecting his clothes from deer blood as protecting what might be a crime scene from the introduction of outside elements, namely, his hair and fibers from his clothes. I’d read enough Patricia Cornwell and Tess Gerritsen to know how easily evidence is mucked up by improper crime scene protocols.
“I thought you might want to be here when I searched the car,” Hart said. “Your reward for finding it.” He flashed a smile.
“You’re not so bad, Hart,” Maud said. “I may have to reevaluate my opinion of your species.”
He looked a bit taken aback. “Men?”
“Cops.”
Hart laughed, and then eased the passenger-side d
oor wider with his elbow. Trying to touch as little as possible, he went through the glove box first. “Nothing in here but the registration, a bunch of napkins, and this.” He straightened, displaying a gun, which dangled from his forefinger by the trigger guard. He sniffed at the barrel but didn’t comment before tucking it into a plastic evidence bag.
Maud and I went around to the driver’s door and peered in, able to see nothing more exciting than stains and pebbles on the worn mats, a tin of chewing tobacco, what looked like receipts tucked under the sun visor, and a half-full bag of cheese puffs. Hart worked his way methodically from the front seat to the back, finding nothing more. Finally, the three of us gathered around the open hatch at the back. Hart eyed the blood-soaked carpet with distaste.
“Only place left to look is under there.” He nodded to the stiff piece of flooring that covered the spare tire’s hidey-hole. Hooking his fingers under the cover, he lifted it.
Maud and I crowded closer, looking over his shoulder. All I saw was the spare tire and the jack and lug wrench tucked into a niche. Hart lifted the tire out and ran his fingers inside the rim, but then shook his head. “Nada.”
Disappointment flowed through me. I’d been so sure we were on the verge of figuring out why Van Allen had been killed, and probably by whom.
“Is it possible that the gun is what Van Allen was selling?” Maud asked. She stood with her hands on her hips, a line between her brows. “Perhaps it was used in the commission of a crime and has the murderer’s fingerprints on it.”
I was impressed. “Ooh, that’s a great idea.”
Hart’s response was more muted. “It’s possible. Unlikely, but possible. We’ll certainly test it for prints and run the serial number. It may well have been used in a robbery or other crime, but given Van Allen’s record, I suspect he’s the one who used it.” Stripping off his gloves, he tucked them into a coverall pocket. “I’ve got to arrange for a tow to Grand Junction so the forensic guys and gals can take it apart.” He lowered his voice and leaned in closer to me. “See you tonight?”
“After my event,” I said, unable to keep a goofy smile off my face. “It might be late, after ten, undoubtedly.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ll be up.”
His smile made me wish life had a fast-forward button so we could skip straight to tonight. Resisting the urge to pull his head down so I could kiss him, I squeezed his hand and joined Maud at the van. I settled into the driver’s seat, feeling instantly warmer out of the wind.
Maud didn’t say anything about the interchange between me and Hart, which made me glad it was she and not Kerry or Brooke with me. Either of those two would have been grilling me for details, and probably giving me advice on what lingerie to wear. Maud was more task-focused. As soon as I reversed the van and headed out of the lot, she said, “So where did Van Allen stash his package?”
“Maybe someone stole it.”
She shook her head. “Don’t think so. No one broke in to that car. I think his girlfriend was wrong. He didn’t leave the package in the car—he took it with him. Which, when you think about it, makes more sense anyway. He wouldn’t have to come all the way back here to get it once the deal’s made with whoever he was meeting.”
“Sounds like he made the trade-off. Whoever he met killed him and got away with the package and the money.” I gripped and released the steering wheel a couple of times, frustrated by this turn of events. I really wanted to know what was in that package. It felt like it was the key to the whole case.
“Shoot.” Maud slumped in the passenger seat. “It does look that way, doesn’t it?”
I gave a dispirited nod. It didn’t seem like we were getting anywhere with this case. I thought about Lola, and how guilty she felt about having brought the murder weapon to the party. I wanted her to at least know that the killer was going to be punished for his or her crime.
A hundred feet from the intersection with Jubilee Parkway, a car was pulled over on the shoulder, and I slowed. As we passed it, I noted the flat tire. A man hauled off and kicked it as we drove past.
“Wasn’t that that movie guy?” Maud asked, craning her neck to get a better look.
I was already slowing and pulling over. He looked like he needed help. When we got out, the man was coming toward us. It was indeed Cosmo Zeller, looking less polished and urbane than he had at the cocktail party. His black blazer was rumpled, his tan silk shirt had a splotch of oil shaped like Florida on it, and his face and lips were wind-reddened.
“Thank God you stopped,” he said. “Hey, I know you.” He snapped his fingers twice. “Amy-Kay, right? The event planner. And you’re Maud.” He gave Maud an appreciative once-over. Despite her being over sixty and making zero effort to attract the opposite sex, there was something about her that appealed to men of every age.
“Amy-Faye,” I said, “but close enough. Anything we can do to help? Looks like you’ve got a flat.”
“Damn rental. Not only do I have a flat, but the spare’s missing and my phone’s out of juice. You’d better believe the rental company is going to hear from my lawyer. If you could let me borrow your phone to call them, that’d be great.” Maud handed over her phone and he made the call, gesticulating with his free hand as he talked. “They’re bringing another car to the B and B,” he said, giving the phone back. “I’m supposed to leave the keys with this one and they’ll fetch it later. Any chance I could get a ride back into town with you?” He smiled a plea, showing lots of white teeth. “These shoes aren’t made for hiking.” He held out one foot, elegantly shod in an expensive-looking leather loafer. No socks, despite the cold.
“Happy to give you a lift,” I said, “but I don’t have a seat in the back of the van. As long as you don’t mind roughing it . . . I’ll try not to crash, since you won’t have a seat belt.”
“No prob,” he said. “Your van is a luxury vehicle compared to the heap I rode around in last month in Burundi. Rusted metal, seat upholstery thinner than a slice of prosciutto, and no shocks to speak of. No doors, so I was looking death in the eye every time we turned right. The driver drove like we were being chased by the zombies from World War Z. I didn’t know if I was going to die of lockjaw or be jolted to death. When a lioness charged us, I almost welcomed a quick death. And the driver had the nerve to charge us five hundred dollars a day.” He scrambled limberly into the back when I slid the van’s door open. “What is this? Moving day?” he asked, looking at the boxes of tableware and linens, the fake potted plants, and the life-sized stand-up figure of tonight’s birthday boy, who was turning fifty.
“Tools of the trade,” I said.
He seated himself gingerly on a sturdy plastic tub and Maud and I returned to the front. I started the van and pulled onto the road gently, trying to take it easy so Zeller wouldn’t rattle around in the back like a loose marble.
“What were you doing in Burundi?” Maud asked. “Joe was there two years ago and loved it.”
“Scouting locations,” Zeller said. “Like I was doing here.” He flipped a hand to indicate Jubilee Mansions as a whole. “Someone told me there was a great house up here, with an observatory at the top, and a couple of turrets. Sounded perfect for one of the scenes in Barbary Close. You know the one. I took a wrong turn, and the car crapped out before I could visit it, though.”
“We can drive you past, if you want,” I said, with absolutely no idea what scene he was referring to, since I hadn’t read the book. I turned right on the main drag through the housing area, rather than left to exit past the gatehouse. “It’s just up here.” I slowed as we drew near the Gaebler mansion, not the largest but definitely one of the most distinctive homes in the area. It was made of gray stone with crenellated turrets at either end. The house was mostly two stories, but a segment in the middle rose to three stories and was crowned with a glass dome. Against the now steely sky, and surrounded by wind-whipped trees, bare of
leaves, and a nine-foot-high iron fence topped with pointy arrow-shaped finials, it looked properly gothic, someplace Dr. Frankenstein might perform his experiments. I’d done an event for the Gaeblers once, though, and I knew it was much warmer and homier on the inside than it looked from here.
Zeller hung over my seat to get a better look through the windshield. He smelled of spicy cologne. “Blimey. What an eyesore. It’s perfect. Think the owners would be willing to let us use it?”
“No idea,” I said, pulling into the driveway so I could turn around. “They’re an older couple, and they spend the winters in Florida. I don’t know if they’ve left for Clearwater Beach yet or not.”
“I’m sure we can come to terms.” He tried to input something on his smartphone, remembered that the battery was dead, cursed, pulled a business card out of his wallet, and jotted a note.
“Where else are you planning to film around here?” Maud asked.
“I’m in talks with the management of the Rocky Peaks Golf and Country Club, and I think my company can make it worth their while to let us film on the back nine for a week. My buddy Seb McManus is going to let us use his ski lodge, too.”
Sebastian McManus was the billionaire who owned the closest ski resort to Heaven.
“You know,” he said, “when we start filming, I can make sure you both get parts as extras. Maybe even a line or two of dialogue.” He announced it like he was conferring a knighthood on us, or at least telling us we’d won the Lotto.
“I’ve got a SAG card,” Maud said, surprising me but apparently not Zeller.
“I thought you looked familiar,” he said. Snapping his fingers twice, he ended with a forefinger pointed at Maud. “The Lost Ones, am I right? You played the skinny prostitute.”
The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala Page 17