Death In Paradise

by Carolyn G. Hart

  A sudden frown marred Belle’s face.

  “That’s right.” Joss smiled at his mother. “I didn’t mention it later, Mom. There didn’t seem to be any reason to get into it.”

  “Because the foundation changed direction when CeeCee died?” Dugan glanced toward Anders.

  Joss’s glance was steady, his voice even. “Of course it changed. Different people have different aims.”

  “So you don’t miss CeeCee?”

  “Miss her?” Joss’s face was somber. “Without her…”

  “You were free to go to Hollywood.” Dugan put it on the table without apology.

  “Without her…” Joss repeated softly “…without her, I was a little brother with no big sister.” Then he looked past the inner half-circle with a sweet smile, “But with two lovely stepsisters.”

  “Aha, the Gallagher clan.” Anders twisted in his seat. “Fully integrated into the Ericcson Foundation. No sibling discrimination permitted.”

  Peggy was tugging on his arm.

  Ignoring his wife, Anders gave a foolish grin. “No discrimination at all. CeeCee told each and every one of us exactly what to do and when to do it. And it always pissed Gretchen off. Look, you can see the fire in that redhead’s eyes even if it is dark. As for Wheeler, man, he’d do anything for CeeCee. Climb a mountain, walk the plank. Yeah, everything but welcome old Stan. Wheeler was not a Stan fan.” Anders giggled. “I like that. Not a Stan fan. Not a”—He lurched to his feet “—Stan fan. Come on now, all together, follow the bouncing—”

  Lester Mackey moved fast. “Let’s get a nightcap, Anders. Come on, let’s walk out this way and—” Lester had an arm around Anders and was gently maneuvering him toward the end of the lanai. Peggy clattered behind them, once again making those plaintive, worried whimpers.

  “And I thought the Gallaghers had to worry about Demon Rum,” Gretchen said wryly. “But I can finish out this little inquisition with a smile. Sort of. It was a hairy day at the foundation. The blow up with Anders put a sharp edge on CeeCee’s morning. I went in next and she was a bitch.” Gretchen gave Belle a rueful smile. “She really was and you know how CeeCee could be—I’d cut the budget on a picnic fund-raiser for her pet candidate. So I slammed out of her office in a snit. But she was in a better humor later. I heard her and Wheeler laughing like crazy and I wondered if they were planning a joke on somebody. Then she went off to lunch with Stan and stayed forever and I had to handle a bunch of calls I didn’t know what to do with. She finally came back about two. She looked grim again and said she was going to work on the budget for next year. She sent Megan to ask me for the latest figures.”

  “Which I did.” Megan was reflective. “Actually, CeeCee wasn’t focused. She kept looking out of the window and losing track of our discussion. She looked depressed. Finally, I told her maybe we should leave it until next week. She said that would be fine.” Megan smoothed back a lock of hair. “I stopped in the doorway. And I don’t know why this happened. I’m not a mother hen, but I said, ‘CeeCee, be careful.’ I don’t know why I said it, but I had a feeling that something was going to happen and the words came out without my even thinking.”

  So Megan was the sensitive in this household. It was Megan who absorbed nuances, filtered emotions, sensed distress.

  “How did CeeCee respond?” Stan asked sharply.

  “CeeCee said…” Megan’s voice was very precise. “‘Being careful is just another way of copping out. I won’t do it. Not anymore.’”

  “Does anyone know what CeeCee was talking about?” Stan gazed around the lanai.

  No one spoke.

  Then he swung toward Wheeler. “What was so funny?”

  Wheeler stared at him.

  “That morning. Between you and CeeCee. What was so funny?”

  Wheeler was absolutely blank for an instant. “Funny.” He was marking time. “Yeah. I remember. It was just a joke we were going to play on Belle. We were going to put pink flamingos all over the lake house. One in Belle’s chair in her office and one on the hood of her car and a couple in the speedboat. Everywhere we could think of. She loved it when we covered the lawn for her 54th birthday.”

  Just another lighthearted moment for the Burke and Gallagher clans.

  Once again, I chanced a question. I hadn’t been booted out yet. “Where were the flamingos?”

  Wheeler blinked at me.

  “That weekend. Where were they?” I repeated.

  “Oh. Well, I hadn’t got them yet. We were just talking about it. We didn’t have the flamingos yet.”

  Nor would they ever have. Whatever led CeeCee and Wheeler to laugh that last day, it wasn’t now something he wanted to reveal.

  Joss stood. “So that wraps it up, doesn’t it? Are you satisfied, Stan? Learned what you wanted to know?”

  “Actually,” Gretchen said, and her voice was light and pleasant but with an undertone of malice, “we haven’t all told what we know, have we? How about you, Stan? You had lunch with CeeCee.” Gretchen’s eyes slid toward him. “I just happened to notice—when CeeCee got back from lunch—she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring.”

  Dugan was a pro. He’d been slugged in the gut in a lot of courtrooms. He gave an easy shrug. “I suppose she’d taken it off for a moment. Probably because she was going to the lake and might go fishing.”

  I wished Peggy were there. I glanced back into the huge dim room, but it was quiet. Peggy and Lester had successfully removed Anders. And themselves. Did Lester want to protect Anders? Or did he want to evade Stan’s questions?

  “You weren’t at the lake, Stan.” Gretchen’s voice was sharp, challenging.

  “No, I was coming down on Sunday.”

  I slid the question in like palming an ace. “And what were CeeCee’s last words to you, Stan?”

  He jammed his hands into his trouser pockets, hunched his shoulders. His harsh face softened. “‘I love you, Stan.’ Those were her last words to me, ‘I love you, Stan.’”

  Peggy told me CeeCee had returned the engagement ring to Stan. But when asked about her last conversation with CeeCee, Peggy claimed they talked about creating the animal refuge Anders so desperately wanted. Joss provided a backup for Peggy’s claim.

  Wheeler trotted out those useful flamingos.

  Keith pitched an old political fight as the reason he and CeeCee quarreled.

  Belle remembered a question of fidelity.

  Stan insisted CeeCee told him she loved him.

  So many different stories.

  I remembered Richard’s wry admonition yet once again. Who was lying? And why?

  thirteen

  Istepped carefully along the cliff path. I’d waited half an hour after the gathering on the lanai broke up. The good nights were brief and constrained. No one had lingered. I’d returned to my suite and made notes, then changed to my navy blouse and slacks.

  It would be shocking if I encountered anyone else on the path. And quite likely dangerous. Who is abroad in the night, except for nefarious purposes? And—I smiled wryly—those seeking hidden facts. There was so much I needed to know to plumb the hearts of those at Ahiahi.

  In my right hand, I carried my rental car keys, the keys poked between my fingers. It was the next best thing to brass knuckles, an eye-gouging defense against an attacker, sharp as hell. A small Mace canister was tucked in my pocket. But I was wary, pausing every so often to listen. An occasional call of an owl added a mournful solemnity to the ever

  present roar of the falls. Whoo-ooo. Whoo-ooo. Who, indeed, companion of the night?

  I reached the steps leading up to the lanai where we had re-created CeeCee Burke’s last day. Or part of it. And had any of those moments had a bearing upon her murder?

  The scarlet flames in the torches wavered above me. I climbed swiftly up the steps and moved across the lanai and through the huge darkened room to the garden. Now I must simply take my chance that I was unobserved. I darted from shadow to shadow until I was deep in the garden, my goal the
cluster of ti shrubs where Keith Scanlon and a woman had quarreled bitterly the night before.

  I found the shrubs. Moonlight silvered the huge waxy leaves. A nearby bougainvillea provided an inky shadow. I wormed my way well off the path but with a clear view. I dropped the keys into my pocket. I would wait a half hour to see if the bait had been taken: TONIGHT. SAME TIME. SAME PLACE. WE HAVE TO TALK. I’M SORRY.

  I’d had only a glimpse of the angry figures the night before, but it seemed to me that I was overseeing—if not a lovers’ quarrel—certainly an encounter between a man and woman who knew each other well. And the woman was not Scanlon’s wife. There were only four young women at Ahiahi. I didn’t think it was a stretch to believe Scanlon would be involved with a young woman. Men with much older wives rarely have affairs with older women.

  I ran over in my mind the possibilities for Keith’s clandestine companion.

  Megan. Did she come to mind because she was strikingly beautiful, the kind of beauty no man could ignore? I could recall no hint of connection between Megan and Keith. Their interchanges were casual, friendly, unremarkable. But that would be the drill, wouldn’t it?

  Gretchen. I can’t judge another woman as a man would, but today when Gretchen and I were at the beach, the vigorous young men near us had certainly noticed her. And Gretchen had a hard-edged, restless quality some men might find very appealing.

  Peggy. Surely not. Anders found her attractive. But Anders sought reassurance, devotion, stability, direction. Keith Scanlon was a man who enjoyed women physically and wouldn’t waste an instant figuring their psyches. Or expecting them to figure his.

  Elise Ford. Belle’s capable, competent, exceedingly attractive secretary. That was the old saw, a man and his secretary. It would be just a slight variation: a man and his wife’s secretary. This afternoon Elise had been distraught. Angry. Even a dream job in paradise doesn’t guarantee happiness.

  Of course, it was possible Keith might take advantage of an employee. There were several maids. One was old and limped. Two were young, one plump and pretty, the other thin and plain with skinned-back hair and a turned-down mouth. But I was almost certain none of them stayed the night at Ahiahi, other than the housekeeper. My immediate response was, no, not Amelia. She seemed a woman of grave dignity. But I had no sense of the maids. For all I knew, the thin maid might have a light foot for dancing and a lust for passion. Neither requires a smile.

  Was Keith the kind of man to exploit an employee? This morning when I was playing tennis, Keith had patted the arm of the pretty little pro with the bouncy ponytail. A more careful man would never touch an employee, male or female.

  I simply didn’t know.

  If no one came, it could be that I was wrong and it was a maid who—

  Footsteps crunched on the crushed oyster shells. Elise Ford hurried around the curve in the path. She jolted to a stop, walked slowly to the ti bush, began to pace. She waited

  fifteen minutes. Then, her voice bitter, she said, “Damn you, Keith,” and whirled to leave.

  I stared after her. Perhaps my note was a dirty trick. But I doubted either she or Keith deserved better.

  CeeCee had spoken to her mother about an unfaithful lover.

  Was Keith the lover she meant?

  Click. Click.

  A soft glow of light spilled down onto the pool table. Stan Dugan sighted along the cue.

  I stepped through the archway. Just as last night. Except Dugan’s hair was damp, and his uneven face looked even more like a gritty block of broken-up cement.

  He glanced toward me, held up his hand, then bent back to make the shot. As the ball rolled into the pocket, he nodded in satisfaction. He replaced the cue.

  I joined him.

  “I took a swim. Had the pool to myself. Then I stopped by your room.” His voice was casual. “There’s not a whole lot shaking around here tonight. Everybody scuttled off to their burrows after our session on the lanai. Except you.” He leaned against the table, pushed his thick-lensed glasses high on his nose. “Still sniffing around?”

  I remembered Elise Ford hurrying to a nonexistent rendezvous. “I took a walk in the garden.”

  “Solo?”

  “Yes.” That was true.

  The huge lens magnified his eyes, cold, probing eyes. “I expect you to ante up, Mrs. Collins. I’m hunting for a killer. Don’t hold out on me.” He folded his arms across his big chest.

  “If I discover anything that will help you, I’ll tell you.” So far as I knew, an affair—an ending affair?—between Elise Ford and Keith Scanlon had no bearing on CeeCee’s kidnapping and murder. But if it was an affair, I had to wonder how long it had been going on. I felt a little pang of disappointment. Had Elise, who seemed to be an appealing young woman, been slipping around corners to meet Belle’s husband for years? I would not have thought it of her. I needed to know a good deal more about Keith and other women.

  I didn’t dance around the question. “Your private investigator—did he find any extramarital flings by Keith?”

  “Funny you should ask.” He looked at me curiously. “You carry around a mental fidelity monitor, slide it over people like a metal detector?”

  I waited.

  Stan turned toward the table, took the rack, and placed the balls in it. “Keith’s been married twice before. No kids. Each time the gal divorced him for screwing around. Always had a chick on the side. But Toby went over everybody’s life like an old maid checking the locks. With what he’d picked up on Keith, he expected to find a present-day chick. But Toby said Keith was being a very careful man if he was involved with anyone. Toby didn’t find a trace of a shady lady. Of course, when a man marries big bucks it encourages a little care. Who knows? It might even encourage fidelity.”

  Ah, but it apparently hadn’t. At least not in recent times.

  “It might,” I said mildly. “But let’s assume the leopard still had his spots. What would CeeCee do if she found out Keith was cheating on Belle?”

  “Handle it. CeeCee wouldn’t have ignored it. Oh, yeah.” He nodded swiftly. “Maybe that’s what she was leading up to with Belle that morning.”

  That had occurred to me, too. But there were other possibilities.

  “CeeCee asked her mother’s advice about infidelity.” I stared up into cold, magnified eyes. “Had you been unfaithful to CeeCee?” There was no question I wasn’t willing to ask.

  The silence between us was odd and dark. Dugan’s gaze moved away from me, focused on the photographs on the wall above the wet bar. “That would have made it simple. But sometimes things aren’t so damn simple, Mrs. Collins.”

  He moved slowly to the gallery, stopped to look up at CeeCee, smiling, carefree, happy. He reached up, gently touched the frame. “She was so goddamn alive. Being with her was like skiing down a black-diamond trail, quick and fast, in air that made you gasp.” His hand fell. “But I told her, I’m a one-woman man—and I had to have a one-man woman. She had to choose. Me. Or Wheeler. I asked her to give me back my ring. And not to come back unless she dumped Wheeler for good.”

  “Wheeler?” But even as I asked, the pieces slotted into place. Wheeler with his hungry eyes and sexual magnetism.

  Dugan leaned against the bar. His big head sank on his chest. He didn’t look at me. Or at anything. “For a long time before we met. Wheeler. Then another guy. Then Wheeler. Then we came together. But she spent the weekend before she died in New York with Wheeler.”

  “He was her stepbrother.” The pieces fit, but the shape was ugly.

  “Yeah. He was, wasn’t he?” Dugan’s voice was harsh.

  I left him standing by the gallery of photographs.

  I walked slowly up the garden walkway, wondering about Stan Dugan and CeeCee Burke and Wheeler Gallagher. About Elise Ford and Keith Scanlon. Love and desire, despair and betrayal. Whose heart was broken, whose passion unfulfilled? I was even with the rooms where Dugan was staying when I saw that the lights were out on the next segment of the walk.

/>   Burned out?

  Turned off?

  I’m not a fool. I had no intention of walking into the spider’s parlor. I shook my head, turned and moved swiftly through Dugan’s open rooms to his lanai and the steps leading down to the cliff path. The lights along the trail illuminated the path. I hurried, eager to gain my own lanai.

  When I looked up, I looked up into darkness except for the flicker of the torches and the star-spangled sky. I reached the steps to the empty quarters, the rooms I’d declined in favor of the last suite, where Richard had stayed.

  I don’t know what warned me. A rush of sound. Perhaps stockinged feet slapping on the tiles. Or perhaps it was more basic than that, the atavistic instinct of terrible danger. But I knew, knew even before I saw the black mass hurtling down at me, knew and jumped forward and caught hold of the waist-high rope along the trail, caught and held and pressed myself against the cliff, felt the crumbly ridges of dirt against my cheek, smelled the sharp, green scent of a plant springing from a crevice.

  The plummeting mass—and it was big, big enough to gouge a chunk from the path behind me—didn’t make much noise. Not enough to rouse anyone, bring anyone. I clung to the rope for a long time, while my heart thudded in my chest.

  I clung and listened and waited.

  It was a long time—five minutes, ten?—before I crept forward. When I reached the steps to my lanai, once again I waited. I had my keys spread through my fingers and the Mace canister clutched tight in the other hand as I eased up the steps.

  But my lanai held no dangers. It took me only a moment to search the suite, make certain it was empty. My opponent wanted an accident. Only an accident would do.

  Thank God for that small advantage.

  But when my door was closed and locked and the louvered shutters drawn with the bolt slid shut, I sank into a chair and began to shake.

  I must be getting close. So close.

  The next morning I walked along the lanai by the empty suite. Sharp marks, perhaps made by a chisel, left angry scratches on the pedestal where a huge Chinese vase had sat. I looked over the railing, shaded my eyes, and saw the torn patches where the vase had bounded down the canyon.