by Maia Chance
“You th-th-thought I did it, didn’t you? That I m-m-murdered poor Muffy, and then Winfield? For th-the inheritance, is that what you th-th-thought?”
“Not exactly.” Raymond must have impersonated Hermie and faked a stutter on the telephone with Ida Shanks. He certainly hadn’t been lying when he said he was a good actor.
“It’s the p-p-poodles, isn’t it? My hobby makes m-me seem odd?”
“No!” This was not the time to tell Hermie that I thought he was a Grade A Weirdie.
“You have a d-d-dog, Mrs. Woodby. You know wh-what it’s like when your d-dog is the only thing you h-h-have in the world.”
Tears leaked from my eyes. “Actually, yes, I do.”
A latch clattered and someone ducked into the storage hold. But it wasn’t Raymond.
“Violet?” I breathed. Yes, that was Violet Wilbur, all right, wearing a chic sailing dress that was perhaps too youthful for her years. She’d bobbed her hair.
“Just popping in to make sure you two haven’t soiled yourselves from fright. That’s a nasty bump on your forehead, Mrs. Woodby. Not that it matters much anymore, since no one but the sharks will see your corpse. Of course, the sharks will be in such a tizzy over the storm that they probably won’t really see you before they chomp down.”
Bitsy growled, low and vibrating.
“Oh shut up, you little bitch,” Violet said.
I pushed down panic. “Do you mind filling me in as to why I’m to be shark luncheon? Not, mind you, that I believe they’ll bite, seeing as I’m coated in Pond’s Vanishing Cream, which works simply wonderfully for the sun but has a rather sour taste.”
“Isn’t it obvious, Mrs. Woodby? You are a meddler—albeit a comical one—of the first order. You and that fat little Swedish woman are like a roving vaudeville act. My God, the problems you’ve caused for us.”
“Us?”
“François and me. I have a nerve issue, you realize, and you’ve pushed me rather too close to the cliff for my liking. I couldn’t sleep a wink last night!”
“François is … Raymond Hathorne?” I asked.
“Y-yes,” Hermie whispered. “And he’s m-m-mad.”
Violet went on. “In fact, I’m really very angry with you, Mrs. Woodby.” She stepped a little closer, and I saw she’d penciled her lips into a Cupid’s bow. The bob, the lips, the seamed stockings …
“What’s happened to you, Miss Wilbur?” I asked. But I already knew: Violet was drawn to baddies like I was drawn to the candy counter at Schrafft’s. And Gil Morris wasn’t her gentleman friend. Oh no. Raymond was. “When did you fall in love with Raymond—I mean, François? Did you meet him in France?”
“Of course not. I met him at Willow Acres, just like you did.”
“But that was, what, a week ago? And you’ve gone and bobbed your hair for him? That’ll take ages to grow back out, you know, with a rather awkward stage to endure when the fringe passes your eyebrows—”
“I’m not growing it back out,” Violet snapped. “François says this hairstyle suits me, and that is all that I desire.”
“But what about good taste? I distinctly remember you writing in Tête-à-Tête magazine that the craze for bobbed hair made you think of a herd of Shetland ponies.”
“Did I?” Violet patted her hair.
My eyes fell on her feet. She wore small, pointy shoes, the very same shoes she’d worn while trampling my hand. “That was you at Coney Island! Why did you murder Muffy and Winfield Morris?”
“I didn’t murder them, darling. François did.”
“Don’t you … mind?”
“Why, no. I find it rather exciting, actually. I could tell the very moment I met him that he was one of the few remaining true men, a man who lives by his own rules, a man with that old noble wildness in him like a Viking or a buccaneer.” Violet’s voice had gone a little breathy. “I’ve always worshipped men like that. I saw François come out of Muffy’s room that night, and when I learned in the morning that she’d died, I knew he’d killed her. I decided I must speak with him alone, tell him that I knew, tell him that I was all his, body and soul, if he’d have me.”
“And he said yes?”
“How could he turn me down? I knew what he’d done, and besides, men can’t resist women who worship them. Toodle-oo.” Violet left, shutting the door behind her.
“Why would Raymond—François—murder Muffy and Winfield?” I asked Hermie.
Hermie shrugged.
“Do you know how he killed Muffy?”
“He b-bragged about it while he was t-t-tying me up today. He g-got the n-night n-nurse drunk in his room—”
“Beaulah!”
“—yes, so he could replace Muffy’s v-vial of m-m-medicine with a v-vial containing rat poison. I knew I’d heard a w-woman g-giggling in his room the night M-M-Muffy … Beaulah is to m-marry Father, you know. Cunning f-floozy.”
When Beaulah said she wouldn’t let anyone louse up her plans, she’d meant her plans to marry Obadiah Inchbald.
And Beaulah had been terrified of Raymond, not me, at the book signing and at the zoo. Raymond had been trying to kill Beaulah. She knew what Raymond had done, but she couldn’t go to the police without admitting that she’d unwittingly abetted his crime by getting splifficated on the job.
“Is she all right?” I asked Hermie. “Beaulah, I mean? Have you seen her?”
“Oh yes. She was p-planning out how she’s g-going to redecorate Inchbald H-Hall this m-m-morning. T-t-tart.”
The sailboat leapt and surged through choppy waters. A motor vibrated. Raymond must have been using an outboard motor to take us out into deeper waters. No one could manage sails in such a storm.
The temperature dropped. Bitsy was restless and I caught a whiff of doggy anxiety-musk. Hermie was oddly lethargic. But then, who knew what kind of violence he’d been subjected to by Raymond in order to get him tied up in this hold. My own forehead pounded with pain, and a crushing headache was in the cards.
The motor cut off. The boat swung to and fro and the wind howled, but we were no longer moving forward.
I was running out of time.
37
I jerked my hands behind me, mostly out of desperation, but … something marvelous happened. The ropes about my wrists slipped easily up and down. I tried moving my wrists even more, with success. All that Pond’s Vanishing Cream that I’d basted myself in! I squeezed my thumbs against my palms so my hands were like seal flippers, and pulled. With a couple of strategic corkscrews, my hands slid free of the ropes.
“Abracadabra,” I said.
Hermie was silent.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “Just as soon as I untie my ankles—” I was already working on that. “—it’s your turn.”
“Need I remind you that w-we are in the m-m-middle of the high seas? During a st-storm, no less?”
“So you’re simply going to sit there?”
“I’m sc-scared.”
“You’re a war hero!”
“That’s what th-th-they s-s-say.”
“Never mind all that, Hermie.” I knelt beside him and picked at the knots that bound his ankles. “The first order of business is getting off this boat alive, and that means that you and I must work together to restrain Raymond and Violet, and then sail back to land.” Hermie’s feet were free. I went to work on the ropes around his wrists. “Do you know how to sail?”
“No. Father n-never allowed me to. He prefers to d-d-do it himself.”
“Even now, at his age?”
“He says I t-tie knots like a g-girl.”
“Well, we’ll figure it out. There is a motor. It can’t be terribly difficult to operate.”
As soon as Hermie was free, he reached for Bitsy’s muzzle.
“Wait,” I said. “Not yet. If Bitsy barks, she’ll blow our cover.”
“L-let me at l-least untie her.”
“All right, but hurry. The storm is getting worse.” The yacht pitched from side to s
ide. An unlit lantern arced through the air, screeching.
Hermie said good-bye to Bitsy and joined me by the door.
I braced myself against the wall. “Here’s the plan,” I whispered. “We’ll find Raymond and Violet and we’ll restrain them—”
“W-with what? Our bare h-hands?”
I squinted around the storeroom. “No. With the same ropes Raymond tied us with.”
We both gathered up a length of rope and went down the hallway. The yacht was heaving so violently, I clonked into the wall twice. We stopped a pace shy of an open door. Voices inside. I plastered myself against the wall and peeked in.
Violet sat atop the tall galley table, legs crossed, holding an empty champagne flute. “Hurry up, darling,” she said in a pouty voice. “I’m thirsty from all this crime and we must toast our success.”
Raymond was crouched in front of a low cupboard, digging around. Looking for booze, I figured.
I turned to Hermie. “Ready?” I whispered.
He nodded.
I made a floppy open knot with my rope. I burst into the galley, and before Violet could do anything more than squeal, I looped my rope up around her knees. Her champagne flute crashed to the floor.
Raymond was on his feet. “Sacrebleu!”
“Get off!” Violet kicked at my midriff.
I managed to tighten the rope. Violet flopped sideways on the table, floundering.
Raymond lurched around the table toward me with a champagne bottle held high like a bludgeon.
“Hermie!” I yelled.
“That worm is loose, too?” Raymond’s lip curled. “Where is he?”
Footsteps pounded beyond the galley door. Hermie was running away.
Raymond scoffed. “Always the coward, eh?” Keeping hold of the champagne bottle, he shoved past me and out of the galley.
“François!” Violet shrilled. “Come back here and help me!”
I dashed after Raymond. He would kill Hermie. I knew it in my gut.
In the hallway, I stumbled against one wall and then the other as I followed Raymond. Stinging-cold rain gusted down the stairs.
He went up. I followed.
* * *
I emerged behind Raymond on deck. A weird, wet glow lit the bucking yacht. Gray clouds churned, seawater slopped, and in the distance, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed.
Hermie clung to the mast. His soaked shoulders rose and fell.
Raymond had grabbed the boom, and he inched toward Hermie while the boom made crazy pendulum swings.
I clutched the side railing, trying to inch closer to Hermie, too. We dipped to the side and I got a faceful of icy brine. My lungs seared and my feet slipped, but I didn’t loose my grip on the railing.
Raymond was going to beat me to Hermie, but I’d be darned if I didn’t get to learn the solution to the puzzle before I became tartare for octopi. “Why did you murder Muffy and Winfield Morris?” I shouted to Raymond over the gusts and crashes.
“Why don’t you tell her why, Hermie?” Raymond yelled.
Streaks of water trembled across Hermie’s glasses.
“Tell her, Hermie!” Raymond shouted.
“Hermie?” I called. “Was it about the girl in France?”
“I h-had no ch-choice!” Hermie called over the gush of the sea. “It was me or her. Anyone would have done it!”
“Tell Lola what happened!” Raymond shouted. “She deserves to know before she dies, after all the trouble she has gone to.”
“I c-can’t!” Hermie yelled, and burst into tears.
Raymond turned to me. “Hermie killed my sister Jeannette during the Great War.”
“Killed?” My voice was lost at sea.
“Not on p-purpose!” Hermie yelped.
“Oh, shut up, you coward!” Raymond roared. To me he called, “And what happened when he came home? He was decorated with a medal for gallantry!”
“What happened to your sister?” I shouted.
Raymond swept sopping hair from his eyes. “The Germans were firing upon my village. Jeannette had taken refuge in our family chicken coop. Hermie—coward!—fled from the action and also attempted to hide in the chicken coop. But there was only enough room for one.” Raymond drew a labored breath. “Hermie dragged Jeannette out of the coop, threw her to the ground, and climbed into the coop himself. Jeannette was shot by a German soldier moments later. I saw it all from the barn. It happened so quickly, but I never forgot Hermie’s face before he fled later into the trees. Fat, red, foolish little face. Jeannette was my best friend, and this worm left her dead, facedown in the mud of a chicken yard.”
There had been no bun in the oven, then. Only an act of cruel cowardice.
Hermie denied nothing. He merely whimpered and clung to the mast.
Raymond went on, still shouting over the gales, “For the rest of my days, I was haunted by nightmares of that scene. I went forward with my life. I was trained as an actor, but to support myself, I became a bartender at the Normandy Barrière hotel in Deauville. Then one day this spring, like a miracle … Hermie Inchbald walked into my bar. It was as though I had been sent a gift: the opportunity for revenge. I would not squander such a gift, oh no. I watched. I planned. I would invade Hermie’s hometown as he had invaded mine. I would kill his beloved sister as he killed mine. I would watch him suffer and then, when I’d had my fill, I would kill him, too. As luck would have it, I found Grace Whiddle’s diary in Muffy’s room—she’d stolen it, I suppose—and that proved to be an effective means for destroying Hermie’s little world. Daddy a war-profiteering criminal? Oh, I couldn’t have planned that.” Raymond smiled in a sizzle of lightning.
“You leased the mansion next door to Hermie in order to watch him,” I cried.
“But, of course! Spent every last franc I’d saved on this ruse, but I think it was well worth it. I haven’t had a single nightmare about Jeannette since I poisoned Muffy.”
“You hit golf balls onto the Inchbald estate in order to go over and snoop.” Realization sucker-punched me. “You overheard me talking to Beaulah in the hedge maze the day you shot Senator Morris!”
“Yes.”
Dear sweet baby bejesus. “Is that where you got the notion to kill Senator Morris? From my conversation with Beaulah?”
“Oh yes. As soon as Beaulah dropped the hint that she’d told Senator Morris what she had done the night I poisoned Muffy—allowing me to get her so drunk that she passed out—well, I knew Senator Morris and Beaulah must die, too. The Coney Island pageant sounded like a wonderful place to shoot someone. Crowds of idiots to hide in. I decided to bring Hermie and stupid old Ulf along for the ride. Very spur of the moment—bringing them was Violet’s idea, actually. We supposed that between Hermie and Ulf, well, someone besides me would take the blame. Did you hear Violet and me yell ‘Anarchist!’? That was all it took for that crowd of fools to panic.”
“Violet is mad, you know!”
“Isn’t she, though? Suits me. She’ll do anything for me, silly cow.”
“How did you know Tibor Ulf’s sons owned Luger Parabellum pistols?”
“I didn’t. That was merely a happy accident. It all worked out rather seamlessly, don’t you think? Of course, I acquired my Luger during the war, from the corpse of a German soldier in a field outside my village.”
“And you meant to kill Beaulah?”
“Yes. She’s slippery, of course, but she’ll be next. Last night I almost had her. I pursued her all the way from the zoo to Inchbald Hall. She got through the gates just a moment too soon. Now. We must get down to business because I really do wish to sail out of this storm. Who wants to go first? Lola, I suppose, since Hermie is such an awful coward.” Raymond pulled a pistol from somewhere and aimed it at my face.
The thrum of a motor—a different motor—cut through the gush of the water and wind. Then it was obliterated.
I had no choice but to tackle Raymond and risk getting shot. I went at him, head down, like a bull in high heels.
Hermie sobbed like a child. Violet emerged from the stairs, a dark shape behind her. Bitsy.
“François, my love!” Violet shrieked. “We must turn toward shore! Set aside your mad plan or we will all die!”
Raymond crawled toward Hermie with murder written all over his face.
The motor-thrum sliced through the waves and wind again. I caught a whiff of gasoline.
“Mrs. Woodby!” someone cried.
Was that … Berta?
Without letting go of the boom, I turned my head. A motorboat bobbed on the waves only a few yards away. Berta was waving frantically, and another shape crouched beside the motor.
Ralph called, “Don’t move! I’m coming!”
“No!” I cried. “I can do it! Try to come closer!” I let go of the boom and pitched and skidded over to the yacht rail. Ralph maneuvered the motorboat alongside the yacht, leaving an undulating two or three feet of water between.
“For God’s sake,” Violet screamed, “I’m not going to die!” She climbed over the railing, leapt, and thunked down onto the motorboat.
“Bitsy!” I cried. Bitsy was skittering around on the deck, searching for her master. “Come on, girl. Come!”
Bitsy skidded toward me.
“Good girl! Come on.”
“What are you doing, Lola?” Ralph shouted up at me.
“I’m not leaving an innocent dog to drown!”
Bitsy was a big girl, but I managed to heave her—she kicked and bucked—over the railing. I dropped her onto Ralph. Then I slung my legs so I was sitting on the rail. I took a big breath. I jumped—and banged painfully on hands and knees inside the motorboat.
Ralph’s hands were on me. “You all right, kid?”
“I think so.” I sat up, dazed, and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Hermie!” I screamed. “Hermie, come on! Jump! He’ll kill you! Hermie!”
Hermie’s white face appeared over the railing.
Bitsy squealed and reared up.