Death In Paradise

by Carolyn G. Hart

  I turned the next few pages of the daybook.

  There were no more entries. Richard had never written again in his daybook. But he had lived for another week—one week and two days.

  Those empty pages spoke volumes to me. They told me that whatever happened to Richard in those following days was so explosive, so incendiary, he’d not been willing to commit it to paper.

  I was sure of that because I knew Richard, knew his care with language. He was so aware that words once created had a life beyond the writer. He never committed facts to paper unless he felt certain of them. Certain of their truth.

  Richard valued truth above all.

  I shut the daybook.

  I had returned to D.C. two days after Richard left. I’d found a brief note, saying he planned to spend a few days with Emily in Austin. Later, I’d always been glad he saw Emily, that she had a bright and happy visit as her farewell to her father.

  I refused to be hurt by his deception.

  Of course, it wasn’t quite a deception. Merely a failure to tell everything he knew.

  And that, again, was so very much a part of Richard. He obviously wanted to talk to Johnnie Rodriguez—and who was he? I would find out—and to evaluate what was said. And, of course, Richard didn’t tell me about the call from Rodriguez because we’d never talked about the kidnapping, or about the time afterward that Richard spent in Texas, both at the lake and later in Dallas.

  There was too much that we had never discussed. So he simply said in his note that he was going to visit Emily.

  Richard: cautious, thoughtful, careful.

  So I’d not known the purpose of his last trip, the true purpose.

  I don’t believe in presentiments. And yet, and yet…But surely it was nothing more than happenstance, Richard taking advantage of being in Texas and going to see Emily.

  If he was troubled, his daughter had not perceived it. She would have told me.

  But, again, I knew Richard so well.

  If he’d learned something from Johnnie Rodriguez that shocked him, surprised him, he would take his time deciding how to respond.

  I’d assumed that Richard had received a call from Belle Ericcson, asking him to come to Kauai. Perhaps that had not been the case at all. Perhaps Richard made the decision to go to Kauai because he learned something that Belle had to be told.

  I hurried downstairs to my study. It took only a moment at my computer to link to The Clarion’s morgue and pull up the kidnapping seven years ago of CeeCee Burke.

  I walked into my kitchen. The poster still lay on the white wooden table.

  March 30 April 1

  A thousand suppositions whirled in my mind. I held tight to two facts. Richard went to Texas, then to Hawaii.

  And so would I.

  three

  Lou Kinkaid looked around the elegant dining room with the pleasure of a purebred cat accustomed to dining on sushi served on silver salvers. There was something catlike, too, in her carefully coiffed ice-white hair and complacent demeanor. Her understated makeup was perfect, her merino wool key-lime cardigan the latest in style. But her eyes didn’t have the cool appraisal of a cat. Instead, her gaze scavenged the room with a hot intensity. She waved a scarlet-nailed hand. “Everyone comes here. That’s the Governor’s wife.”

  I looked across the room at an equally beautifully dressed woman with a pleasant face despite the smooth guardedness created by years in politics, like a stone worn glassy by unending pressure in a streambed.

  “So you’re Henrie O.” Lou Kinkaid flashed a vivid, meaningless smile with as little warmth as an arctic sunrise. “I knew Richard a million years ago. In Austin. In those days, women always got the soc desk.” Something flickered deep in her bright blue eyes. I wondered if it was a long-buried resentment. Had she been jealous of Richard? The soc desk. I hadn’t heard that phrase in years, but I remembered the old lingo. Yes, it was an exceptional woman reporter in those days who didn’t end up writing society news. That’s where Lou started. She ended as a lifestyle editor, and a very successful one. It had been easy to find an acquaintance who knew her and could arrange for us to meet.

  Her avid, probing eyes settled on me. “What brings you to Dallas?”

  What, indeed?

  “I’ve been asked to do a piece on Belle Ericcson.” I mentioned one of the popular weekly magazines that specialize in celebrity chatter. “And Dallas was her home base. Before the kidnapping.” I listened to my smooth, pleasant words with a sense of shock at my capacity for deception. Inside, I seethed with dislike for this sharp-featured woman and her glacial, automatic charm. But wasn’t I right on her level? She smiled and meant nothing. And so did I.

  “Good luck. You’ll need it.” Her quick laughter was brittle and unamused. It was a taunt disguised by humor. It was clear she had no good wishes for me.

  “Why?” I took a bite of steak, found it tasteless and knew the fault lay with me. Was my immediate distaste for this woman equally invalid?

  “Oh, if you do the glossy, skin-deep stuff, you’ll do all right. There’s plenty of that kind of information around. ‘Intrepid Belle Ericcson, prize-winning writer, accomplished pilot, generous philanthropist.’” The descriptive phrase, intoned in a deep, smooth voice, was an uncanny mimicry of a television announcer’s soulful spiel. “Easier than making pie crust. I can do it in my sleep.”

  My quick, visceral response was anger. Who the hell did she think she was? And where did she get off, implying I would write fluff. My face hardened. My hand tightened on my glass of iced tea. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was the deep desperate need to discover what this woman knew, but I took a breath and replayed the words in my mind and caught the subtext.

  Maybe, just maybe…

  “You think Belle’s public persona is phony?” I cut another piece of meat, tried to make it look as though I were eating. But I didn’t care about food. Everything, all the everyday, ordinary actions were distractions, impediments. Yes, I would eat enough. And sleep. Dress and smile. Create conversation. But the goal—What happened to Richard? Why did Richard die?—thudded feverishly in my mind like incessant jungle drums.

  “I did a piece on her for the Sunday section. It was like wrapping up a Christmas present—lots of tinsel, stars, stickers. Gorgeous bow. But when you open the box, there’s nothing there.” Dissatisfaction glittered in her eyes.

  I shook my head when the waiter offered more wine. He filled Lou’s glass. She took a greedy gulp as he moved away. It was she who’d chosen the wine, at my invitation, selecting an expensive French Chardonnay. And a very expensive entree, quail in white wine. I’d chosen mesquite-smoked tenderloin. I couldn’t come to Texas and not eat beef.

  But expense didn’t matter now. My last-minute plane tickets to Dallas and on to Hawaii were absurdly expensive even with the helpful senior discount. I don’t like to waste money and I wasn’t on anyone’s expense account.

  But money be damned.

  The world be damned.

  I was in Texas because I had to be. I was going to Hawaii. I would do what I had to do, go where I had to go.

  Lou finished the glass, looked regretfully for the waiter.

  I had myself well under control now. “You think there’s more—or less—than meets the eye of the reader in stories about Belle?”

  Lou took a last bite of quail, glanced again at her empty wineglass.

  I caught the waiter’s attention. More wine. An order for dessert, though nothing appealed to me.

  “It’s like fireworks,” Lou said thoughtfully, holding the wineglass so that a stream of sunshine touched it with gold. “What’s left after the hard, hot, bright glare? Twisted, dark pieces of wire, burned cardboard, a nasty smell. You know what I think?” She leaned her elbows on the table. Her bright, sardonic, weary gaze held mine. “I think there’s a story there, all right. It’s so perfect on the surface: brilliant and beautiful woman reporter with a fascinating family, three children of her own from her marriage to a gifted artis
t; widowhood; remarriage to a hard-charging newspaperman with his own three kids; melded family, high-society kids who provide appealing feature copy with lots of jokes and entertaining escapades. Sheesh. But I saw them in action here for cinco years and sometimes they didn’t have on their party faces. I’d like to have been at Belle’s Highland Park mansion when it was just family. Her third husband is a hell of a lot younger than she is. And CeeCee, the beautiful director of the Ericcson Foundation—now doesn’t that sound like stellar Junior League? But she broke two engagements! To fine young men. And her latest fiancé, Stan Dugan, he’d probably never been inside a country club until he met CeeCee. A personal-injury lawyer.” Lou’s patrician nose wrinkled. “Ugly as sin. I imagine Belle was appalled. Yes, I think the right questions could flip some images fast. Who took care of Belle’s kids while she was busy being Ms. Glamorous War Correspondent? Why did she marry two drunks in a row?” The shiny white hair quivered as she nodded vigorously. “God’s truth. I had a friend who knew Belle and her first husband, Oliver Burke, in Tokyo. Burke was soused all the time. And the second one, Gallagher, was drunk as a lord when his car went into the Potomac. Find out which general

  she slept with in Vietnam.” She shot me a sharp, quick look. “She knew Richard there. Didn’t she?”

  “Of course.” I made my answer careless, as if it didn’t matter.

  Those hot blue eyes flickered with amusement and erotic supposition. “Belle was even more gorgeous then than now.”

  If I could have shoved back my chair and escaped, I would have.

  Lou Kinkaid knew it.

  “Richard thought very highly of Belle.” My smile felt as if it were pasted to my face.

  Her lips curved in malicious pleasure. “I’m sure he did. Most men did.”

  Damn you. Damn you.

  I kept my voice even. “I’ve read a lot about Belle and her family.” Read and made notes and studied and compiled. “It sounds as though they had a lot of fun. Until the kidnapping.”

  “Sounds that way.” She drawled it. “But some questions never get answered. Why is her oldest son crossways with the world? And yet he’s the only one who’s stayed in Dallas. All the others blew town as soon as they got CeeCee buried. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Belle handpicked a society girl for Joss, her youngest son, to marry. They didn’t even stay married a year. They split right after CeeCee was kidnapped. Why did the foundation—the Ericcson Foundation, funded with Belle’s millions—completely change direction after CeeCee died? She was the one who ran it, you know. And all the other siblings worked for her. One great big happy family…I don’t think. Especially the stepkids, the ones who joined the crew when Belle married Gallagher. What do they really think about Super Stepmom? Gretchen Gallagher always looks like a thundercloud, especially when Stepmom’s around. And Wheeler Gallagher’s never had a real job.” Lou looked again around the elegant dining room. “But Belle was

  a Dallas icon. I couldn’t ask what I wanted to ask. What do

  you intend to ask?”

  “Questions Belle has never heard,” I said grimly.

  Lou gave a small shrug that barely lifted her beautifully tailored jacket. She held up her wineglass. “Good luck.” It was grudging but this time perhaps sincere.

  The desserts arrived. She finished the glass of wine first—I’d lost count of how many—then spooned globs of a chocolate confection that looked darker than a Bavarian forest.

  I ate peppermint sorbet. It was almost as tart as my thoughts.

  The Greek Revival house glistened in the bright Texas sun. I drove the rental car into a modest parking lot screened by poplars. A small wooden sign at the foot of the broad steps announced: ERICCSON FOUNDATION.

  The door opened into a broad central hall. To my right was a shiny walnut desk. A young woman with a pleasant face and ginger hair looked up and smiled cheerfully. “Good morning. May I help you?”

  My shoes clicked on the wooden floor. “Yes. I’d like to see Mr. Burke, please.”

  Anders Burke was the older of CeeCee Burke’s two brothers and it was he who was now director of the Ericcson Foundation.

  “I’m sorry.” She sounded genuinely concerned. “Mr. Burke is out of town and won’t be back for a week. Perhaps I can help you.”

  I wasn’t surprised. I knew where Anders Burke was. And all the rest of Belle’s children, natural and adopted. They were on Kauai, gathering as they did every year in memory of their slain sister. They’d been there when Richard died. Did Richard go to Kauai because they all were there?

  But I looked pettish, a wealthy woman irritated that her plans were thwarted. I fingered the heavy gold necklace at my throat. It was a great complement to my navy linen dress with matching gold buttons. “Oh, dear. I’ve come all the way from Lubbock to see him. I suppose I should have called first. I’m Isabel Rushton and I wanted to find out more about the foundation to see if I might include it in my charities.”

  She sprang to her feet. “Oh, I’m sure I can help you, Mrs. Rushton. And I’ll have Mr. Burke contact you as soon as he returns. But I can give you a great deal of information about the foundation. I’m Ginger Cowan, Mr. Burke’s assistant. And I’ll be happy to show you our offices.”

  “Oh, yes, I’d like that.” I looked around inquisitively. I pointed to the closed double doors across the hall. “Is that Mr. Burke’s office?”

  “No, ma’am.” For an instant, she looked uncomfortable. “That was the office of our first director. At present that office isn’t used.”

  I raised my eyebrows, a canny philanthropist scenting possible waste and inefficiency, perhaps compounded by unstable leadership.

  Ginger plunged into explanations. “…and Anders—Mr. Burke—didn’t want to take over his sister’s office. I think it was just too hard for him. I know you’ll understand.”

  “My, oh my, of course. That poor child. I remember now. As I recall, the kidnapping was never solved, was it? Of course, I understand.” I had my hand on the brass knob to one of the doors. “But may I just take a peek?” An old lady with ghoulish tendencies.

  “Of course, Mrs. Rushton.” She hurried to join me.

  I opened the door, stepped into an elegant room.

  Ginger flipped a switch and a magnificent chandelier glowed to life. The turquoise hangings were as rich as a New Mexico sky, the gray walls cool as pewter. White linen slipcovers looked crisp on the occasional chairs. A shiny fruit-wood desk was flanked by two tall french windows. But the room was dominated by a massive mahogany dining table covered with small plastic frames bright with color.

  I walked to the desk. Each frame contained a miniaturized poster. It was easy to see at a quick glance the projects supported by the Ericcson Foundation.

  RUN FOR THE ROSES FIGHT BREAST CANCER

  MAKE THE NIGHT SAFE FOR WOMEN

  ELECT LINDA MORGAN PUT WOMEN IN THE LEGISLATURE

  There were dozens more, supporting political candidates and themes—drug-free schools, the anti-tobacco lobby, universal medical care—and each poster had the Ericcson Foundation logo in the lower right-hand corner, a bell emblazoned with a rose. CeeCee Burke championed causes dear to many women.

  I picked up one of the plastic holders and felt the grit of dust. The line where the frame had sat was clearly visible on the table.

  Ginger ineffectually brushed her hand across the line, leaving a smear. “No one comes in here very often. Let me show you the rest of the offices.”

  But I stared at the bright posters, frowning. “No one told me that the foundation was quite so liberal.” My tone indicated repugnance.

  “Oh, Mrs. Rushton, please, all of this is completely out-ofdate. The foundation is absolutely apolitical now. Mr. Burke has totally redirected the aims of the foundation.” Ginger spoke fast. Her eyes shone.

  “Indeed?” I looked at her suspiciously, a conservative dowager with pots of money available for the right programs.

  “Oh, yes. Come. Let me show you.” She urged me out of
the dusty room, clicked off the chandelier, leaving the little plastic mementos shrouded in dusky neglect. She led me on a whirlwind tour, upstairs and down. There were brilliantly hued posters, but no miniatures now. They all proclaimed the same goal: protect our world, its environment and its animals. Save dolphins from shrimp nets. Release wolves in the Northwest. Stave off development of wetlands and the remaining tall-grass prairies. Stop the cruelty of medical research on helpless cats and dogs and monkeys who think and feel and suffer.

  Coming back downstairs, I stopped and studied a full-length portrait on the landing. I didn’t need the little bronze plaque at the bottom to identify Belle’s daughter. But I looked at it inquiringly.

  My young guide’s face took on a subdued, somber cast. “That’s Miss Burke.”

  I wondered who had chosen this photograph, had it enlarged to full length. It told as much about the selector as it did about CeeCee Burke.

  “Mr. Burke’s wife, Peggy, had it put there.” Ginger stared up, her face puzzled, perhaps trying to understand the willfulness of fate.

  So it was chosen by Peggy Burke, not by Anders.

  CeeCee’s head was thrown back, her long dark hair brushed back by a breeze, her face alight with happiness. She wore a plaid shirt and jeans and boots. An armful of Dalmatian puppies snuggled and licked and squirmed in her embrace. Bright sunlight glistened on a cottonwood tree and cottonwood puffs drifted on the summer air.

  “Very nice,” I said approvingly, but I struggled against the ache in my throat from that forever-gone image trans

  fixed for one brief moment. It was a poignant reminder that Richard’s death had been preceded by another.

  I kept my face blank and walked on down the stairs. I played my part, making it clear that I was reassured about the goals of the foundation, but I wanted time to consider my course of action. I declined to leave my address and telephone number. “I’ll be in touch, Miss Cowan. And I certainly appreciate your kindness today. I am very interested in Mr. Burke’s commitment to nature.” I accepted an armload of pamphlets. “Do you enjoy the foundation as much since it has so drastically changed its aims?”