Proof of Murder

by Lauren Elliott

  “Never mind trying to come up with an excuse.” Art took a step closer to the fireplace. He raised his umbrella and with a jab poked the tip into the center notch of the design on the mantel, triggering the opening to close. “I know exactly what you’ve been up to.” His eyes glimmered with malice as he extended his umbrella and clicked a button on the ivory handle, projecting a six-inch blade pointed directly at Addie’s throat.

  “Very James Bondish of you.” Addie swallowed in an attempt to dislodge her heart from her throat and knew then why the aftershave smelled familiar. There was no question about the lingering aroma of cedarwood and patchouli emanating from Art.

  His top lip curled up at the corner. “I thought when I set it up so all the evidence pointed to you and you were arrested, that would be the end of your nosing around, but you don’t take hints very well, do you?” His eyes bore into Addie’s with an intensity that made the hairs on her arms quiver. “It seems even the events I staged in your shop weren’t enough to sway you or that shop girl of yours.” Addie flinched. “I admit she wasn’t as skittish as I thought she was. When the books tumbled off the shelves, thanks to my trusty little contraption here”—he waved his dagger-ended umbrella—“I thought she would bolt and run away. I never expected her to start to turn around to see what was causing the chaos I was creating. I had to stop her before that happened and she recognized me. That’s when . . . well, let’s just say you saw the result.” Addie swallowed hard to squelch the queasiness in the pit of her stomach. “I guess I’ll have to do something about that now, won’t I?” He took another step toward her.

  “Artie, what are you doing?” Vera shrieked.

  Art waved the knife tip in her direction. “Get over there beside Miss Greyborne. Now!”

  “But, Art, I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

  “Shut up, you silly woman. I’ve had enough of you and your whiny daughter. There’s only so much I can put up with.”

  “You said you loved me.” Vera’s eyes filled with tears as she edged her way over to Addie.

  “Love.” He spat out the word. “Hardly.”

  “But when we met on the cruise ship last year, you came back here with me to start over, to start a new life, with me.”

  “Yeah, just part of the plan.” He barked out a laugh and he waved the blade in their direction.

  Tiny shivers raced up Addie’s spine. “I’d say by what I discovered up in that secret room, you’ve been planning this for some time.”

  He set his daggerlike eyes on hers. “You have no idea how much has gone into this little venture.”

  There was something about the darkening expression in his eyes that looked familiar. She glanced up at the portrait of Tobias Gallagher and then back at Art. “You’re Tobias.”

  “I knew it was only a matter of time until you’d figure it all out, the way you were nosing around here. You see, I’ve been watching you.” He chuckled. “Through the eyes of my great-grandfather, so to speak.”

  “Art, please explain to me—”

  “Be quiet, woman.” He raked his hand through his thick silver hair. “Now I know why my grandfather pushed my mother down the stairs. He’d had enough of her incessant whining.”

  Addie clutched at her throat. “Your grandfather, Arthur, killed your mother?”

  “That’s what it said in my father’s journal that I found after he died.” Art’s eyes narrowed—a distant look came across them. “It said she suffered from what they call today postpartum depression, after my birth. My grandmother apparently had taken me out of my crib because I was crying, and my mother wasn’t attending to me. My mother thought she was stealing me and chased after her. My grandfather tried to stop her, and they struggled. He pushed her down the stairs.”

  “Maybe it was an accident?”

  “That’s what they tried to tell my father.”

  “William?”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t buy it. They had always disliked my mother, said she wasn’t good enough to marry a Gallagher. Her family was trash. My father left this house that night—left me. And didn’t return for five years.”

  “He came back? I’d heard when he left that night in 1945, he never returned to the house again.” Addie studied Art as he edged his way closer to the doorway. Was he going to bolt out of here, or bolt the doors to keep them in? She had to think fast. Keep him talking, Addie, keep him busy. She took a step forward, pushing Vera behind her.

  “Yeah, for me, I guess—according to his journal—but my grandparents weren’t going to let him take me. I was hiding around the corner at the top of the stairs, and I heard him tell my grandfather that he’d finally gotten clean. He’d been on a long bender after my mother died, and that he’d come back for me. My grandparents didn’t believe him because he reeked of whiskey. They refused to let him take me. They fought, and we left. Then the next day it was in the newspapers that they were both found dead.”

  “But where did you go? What happened? Why couldn’t the authorities locate you when they were searching for heirs to this estate?”

  “Because my father was a crazy old man, and he changed my name so they couldn’t track me and implicate him in their deaths. As far as anyone knew, he’d never returned here. But he never got over my mother’s death. He hated me, and every time he looked at me he told me how much I looked like her, and he hated me more for it. Then, when I finally had enough of his abuse when I was sixteen, I took off and changed my name again, and never looked back.”

  “Did he report you as missing?”

  “Yeah, and when they couldn’t find me, I was presumed dead.”

  “How did you find out about this house and the sale for back taxes, then?”

  “I had started a lucrative property investment business, of sorts, in Seattle. It was the perfect location for supplying high-end property to out-of-country buyers and flipping it for them.”

  “Laundering money through real estate, in other words.”

  “Call it what you want, it kept me in the green for a number of years. Then I heard my father’s house on Bainbridge Island was coming up for sale. I did a bit of nosing around and found out he’d died leaving no heir.”

  “He thought you were dead, too?”

  “I’d been dead to him my whole life. I never understood why he even took me from my grandparents’ house—this house!” A large blue vein throbbed at his temple. “It wasn’t until I read his journal and realized my mother died because of my grandfather that I knew. My father thought he was saving me, but what he did was destroy me. He never got over believing I was to blame for her death.”

  “But you were just a baby and had nothing to do with it.”

  “He never believed that.”

  “But he must have at some point because he came back for you.” Addie’s eyes pleaded for him to understand. “He must have wanted you.”

  “He only wanted to punish me, and he never stopped until the day I hit back and ran from his home. I never went back until I learned he’d died. As a real-estate agent, it was easy enough to get access, so I went in and took anything and everything I felt that old codger owed me for stealing my life.” Tension emanated from his body, his voice raw with hatred. “I found a box of his journals, and let’s just say they made for some rather eye-opening reading.”

  “Is that when you found out about this house?”

  “Yes, and being in the industry, I could check around and discovered it was going up for auction, and I started to percolate my plan. After all, this is my family home, the one I was deprived of my entire life. Now it’s going back into the hands of a Gallagher. A legacy my father deprived me of when I was too young to have a say.” Art toyed with the umbrella in his hand. He clicked the knife attachment back up into the shaft.

  Addie inched toward him. If she was going to make a run for help, this was her opening, but Vera bolted past her, an unearthly sound gurgling from her throat.

  Vera’s fists flew wildly in the air as she ran
at Art, screaming, “I thought you loved me!”

  Art wrapped the crook of the handle around her neck and yanked her ear to his lips. “Stop squirming, my dear. You’ll only make it worse.”

  “What’s going on?” she whimpered. “I still don’t understand any of this.”

  “It’s easy. You were my ticket into this town. Are you really so naive as to believe our meeting on that cruise was accidental?” His question was met with silence. “Has it dawned on you yet that you were part of my plan from the very beginning, my dear?” He tightened his grip around her throat. “And now you’re going to be my ticket out.” Addie took another step toward him. “Stop right there, or I’ll snap her neck like a twig.”

  Addie stopped, her gaze darting around the room for something, anything, to use as a weapon, but it was no use. Blake had cleared the room of everything except the large desk.

  Vera squirmed under Art. Her hands flew to her throat, her fingers struggling to work their way under the ivory handle. By the discoloration on Vera’s lips, Addie knew she was in trouble. She had to think fast.

  “Why don’t you let her go, and you can tell me what this is all about.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. The plan has been in the works since before I met this lovely lady last year. I discovered her daughter owned a real-estate company in Greyborne Harbor, and that since the authorities thought I was dead, my family home was going to be sold for back taxes. I needed an in, and”—he stroked Vera’s cheek with his free hand—“what was a better in than befriending the lonely widow of the real-estate owner who would be handling the listing? I played my cards right. It gave me access to the keys for the house, and I began squirreling away the items I knew I could sell and make a lot of money from. Then I found my grandfather’s journal stashed in here and my ticket to a different future: heir apparent to the Gallagher estate.”

  “But you destroyed a valuable book in the process. It could have added to your wealth.”

  “Collateral damage, my dear, one small sacrifice to find the birth certificate my grandfather had hidden inside it. How else was I going to prove the right to my inheritance since I had been presumed dead?”

  “Did you find the journal upstairs in that hidden room?”

  “Yes, it seems my great-grandfather liked to entertain his lady friends up there. That’s why he built it and the tunnel leading up from the garden.”

  “The rumors about Tobias Gallagher were true. He was a womanizer.”

  “He was that and much more. What’s written in the journals about him would curl your toes, my dear. Let’s just say that secret room and tunnel provided his family with a very affluent life. It’s just too bad my great-grandmother couldn’t live with what he was involved with and took her life because of it.”

  Addie shivered, recalling the news article she’d read. “You learned all this from your grandfather’s journals?”

  “It seems I’m not the first of the Gallaghers to take a walk on the dark side.” His face twisted in a mock laugh. “From what I read, I knew the certificate was somewhere in this mausoleum. There were clues in his journals, too. I just had no idea at first what they meant. I only knew it was hidden inside something in this house. Then I discovered the barrister’s case hidden in one of the wings in the attic. It seems your good friend, Blake, and his Irish crony were running a scheme of their own, which was foiled when a staffer discovered the case and brought it downstairs for appraisal. I had already found the books in there and the one that matched the vague clue about a scarlet thread running through the skein of life. I had ordered the replicas just in case my hunch about that book was right.”

  “It obviously was.” Addie kept her eyes on his as she shuffled closer to the desk.

  “But who knew you’d show up and start asking questions and discover the originals were gone before I could claim my inheritance?” His grip around Vera’s throat tightened. “With that piece of paper and a DNA match to the lock of hair with it, I can now put a stop to the sale of the rest of my property, and I don’t have to leave town with the loot I’ve taken like I had first planned.”

  “You’re forgetting one important factor.” Addie edged her way around the desk. “You now have two witnesses to all this who know what you’ve been doing.”

  He smirked, turning his body to match her position. “Do you really think I have any intention of letting either of you go?” Vera wheezed as his hand tightened on her neck. “This one will escort me out of town so we can celebrate our honeymoon in which she’ll meet with a most unfortunate accident while we walk the path around the Grand Canyon.”

  “And me? What do you have planned for me?” Addie touched her cell phone in her front pocket.

  “You? Well, I’m aware that you know the tunnel hasn’t been used for years. When they find your body down there, it will be put down to you getting in over your head in proving your innocence. You must have gotten trapped down there and met your demise when you were attacked and eaten by a rat or a few hundred. Now give me your cell phone.”

  “It’s in my bag. I’ll have to dig through it to find it.”

  He dragged Vera over to Addie. “Hurry up, then, and no tricks, or I’ll have to make new honeymoon plans. Perhaps with the lovely Maggie.”

  Vera screeched; her fingers clawed wildly at his arm.

  “Stop squirming, woman,” Art snapped, and smacked the side of her head with the umbrella handle. Addie eyed the distance between her and Art. She leaned on one hip, fussing with both hands in her bag as she inched her way along the desk until she was within arm’s reach of him.

  “What are you doing? Hurry up and give me that damn phone!”

  “Sorry, I can’t seem to find it.” With two hands in her bag, Addie grabbed what she hoped was the decanter and swung unseeing, clipping Art on the side of the head. He stumbled to the floor, pulling Vera with him. Addie pushed Vera out of the way, and dropped, legs straddled over his writhing body.

  She dug her phone out of her jeans pocket and pushed it across the floor to Vera. “Call nine-one-one.”

  Addie looked at what she held in her hands. It wasn’t the decanter. “How fitting.” She chuckled. “You’ve just been taken down by the very book you saw as collateral damage.”

  Art shifted his body under her and raised his head. Addie whacked him again. “Do you know why Sir Arthur named the book A Study in Scarlet?”

  Art groaned, trying to raise his shoulders.

  Addie brought the book back down on his head. “Well, let me tell you the story.” She dug her knees into his shoulders to still him. “There’s a scene where Holmes tells a friend that he thought of his murder investigation as his study in scarlet because ‘there’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.’ Rather fitting, wouldn’t you say, Art?”

  The library doors flew open, and Marc appeared, gun drawn. His gaze darted between Addie and the man she had pinned beneath her.

  “That was fast. I think Vera just hung up.”

  “I was on my way here,” Marc said. “Martha called when you didn’t return after dropping Paige off. She said your sandwich board was still on the street, but your CLOSED sign was on the door. One of my officers spotted your car out front, and I headed over. That’s when Vera’s call came in. What happened?” He eyed the book Addie brandished like an ax.

  “Marc, I’d like you to meet Hill Road House’s resident ghost, Tobias Gallagher.” Tobias lifted his head and moaned. Addie thwacked him once more with the book for good measure, but then a sound behind her caused her to jerk. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to witness the portrait over the mantel crash to the floor, the frame splintering into pieces on the stone hearth. “Or at least one of them,” she said, her voice barely audible.

  Chapter 33

  “Phew,” Addie puffed, flipped the deadbolt on the shop door, and turned the sign to CLOSED. “Catherine, I’m no
t sure I could have survived this day without you. If you ever change your mind about going back to work, even part-time, let me know. I’ll hire you in a heartbeat.” Addie glanced at her friend hopefully. “With this increase in foot traffic, I know I need to hire someone to help Paige out, and I would love it to be you.” The corners of her mouth fought against her exhaustion as she managed a grin.

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’m far too busy with my volunteer work and event planning at the hospital now to even think about taking on another commitment.”

  “I know, but keep it in mind. Even if it’s only as long as cruise season lasts, because if today was any indication of what lies ahead, I’m going to need more help.”

  Catherine replaced a book she’d been paying particular attention to on the sale rack. “If the other shops in town were half as busy as we were today, I’d say the town council made the right decision to pursue the contract with the cruise line.”

  Addie dropped a pod in the coffeemaker. “I haven’t seen Serena all day, which is unusual. I’m thinking she was as busy as we were.”

  “Martha, too. Everyone appeared to be carrying one of her bakery bags.”

  “That was a brilliant idea she had in having those reusable tote bags made up with her store logo on them.”

  Catherine dropped a pod in the machine after Addie took her cup. “I heard she and a few of the other shops on Main Street got together and did a bulk order.”

  Addie took a sip of her brew and frowned. “I wish someone would have asked me to participate. Cloth book bags are a perfect marketing tool.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I don’t think it was an intentional slight.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t as Martha and I have finally started to make some headway in our friendship, but still—”

  “From what Mildred at the Emporium on Main told me, that’s because there was more than one shop ordering in bulk. The manufacturer limited them to what design each store could order. All they could include to get the bulk rate was the name of their shop, and that was it. Now that you see what a good idea it is, you’re free to order your own and can include your Beyond the Page bookstore graphic on them.”