by Carolyn Hart
“Proof!” He bent toward me. “Hey, really? What’s up?”
I explained about the location of Connor’s body, turned away from the hall door, and the crushed glasses.
“Yeah.” His tone was considering. “Well, yeah, maybe. It’s something, I guess. But how about Lloyd came through the connecting door, they fussed around and he started for the hall door and…” His words trailed off.
I felt vindicated. There was hardly a reasonable way to place Lloyd on the hall side of Connor.
Aaron shoved a hand through his thick curls. “If it was someone who came in from the hall…But who would she let in?”
I didn’t answer, but I didn’t need to. Aaron stepped back from me, jammed his hands, in the pockets of his trousers. “Oh, no. That can’t be, Mrs. Collins.”
“She opened the door to someone she trusted, Aaron.” I felt his resistance. I understood. I refused to list that short, oh so short, tally of names. I held the picture of those crushed glasses in my mind like a talisman and flung my parting words at Aaron. “You can tell everyone. Lloyd is innocent.”
But would anyone ever believe me?
twenty-two
THE Central Division Police Station at 42 Parliament Street was a pale gray stone building. Blue iron bars added a somber note to blue-trimmed windows. I paid the taxi driver and walked up the sloping sidewalk to a worn wooden door. Two flags—the red flag of Bermuda with the Union Jack in the upper left corner and the Bermudian coat of arms in the lower right, and the blue police standard—hung on either side of a small blue awning at the entrance.
I opened the door and stepped into a small alcove with pale blue walls. The office was to the left, behind plate glass and a wooden counter. I walked to an opening in the plate glass.
The station officer, a middle-aged woman, looked up from her desk. “May I help you?”
“I must talk to Chief Inspector Foster.” I spoke courteously, but firmly. If I was turned down, sent away…“Please tell him that Mrs. Collins wishes to see him and that I have important information about the murder of Mrs. Connor Bailey.” Would that be enough to win me an audience? Truth to tell, this was not new information for Foster. I must persuade him to think about Connor’s twisted glasses and what they told us.
Her dark face betrayed no curiosity, though her eyes studied me for perhaps an instant longer than usual. “Yes, ma’am.” She lifted her telephone receiver, punched an extension. “Chief Inspector, a Mrs. Collins is here to speak to you in regard to the Bailey investigation.”
I braced myself against the counter, fighting off a wave of dizziness. Although I’d retrieved another Baby Ruth from the coin machine in the short hallway while waiting for the taxi, I’d not yet eaten it.
“Yes, sir. I will tell her.” She replaced the receiver and looked at me in concern. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“Yes, thank you. Just a little tired.” I pushed away from the counter, managed a smile.
She looked at me doubtfully. “The CID section is on the third floor. You will have to climb the stairs.”
I was past the first hurdle. I would have climbed ten flights of stairs to reach the chief inspector. “That’s fine.”
She gestured toward a door opposite the entrance. “Press the buzzer and it will open.”
I was still a little dizzy, but I walked without faltering, pressed the button, heard the buzz. In a moment, I turned the knob. As the door closed behind me and I started up the worn wooden stairs, I opened my purse, pulled out the candy bar, unwrapped it. Every bite was elixir. I stopped at each landing to rest. The air was stale and musty in the enclosed stairwell. It was eerily quiet and I found the eggshell-blue walls dingy and cheerless. I finished the snack as I reached the glass door to the third floor. I pressed another buzzer.
A young man with protuberant blue eyes and scant brown hair opened the door, stood aside. I looked over a work area of cubicles with desks and computers. The screens glowed sea-green. Only two cubicles were occupied, but it was seven o’clock on a Saturday night.
“Chief Inspector Foster?” My voice sounded overly loud in the almost deserted room.
The young detective gestured to a corridor. “The chief inspector’s office is the fourth door on the left.”
“Thank you.” As I moved briskly, thanks to the infusion of sugar, up the corridor, I realized my left hand, tucked in my sweater pocket, was tightly gripping the keys to rooms 32 and 34 at Tower Ridge House. I doubted Chief Inspector Foster would approve. I unclenched my fingers, pulled my hand free. At the fourth door, I knocked firmly.
The door swung open. “Come in, Mrs. Collins.” Although his voice was as polite as usual, Foster looked weary, the muscles in his face a little slack, his eyes somber, his dark navy suit wrinkled.
The square office was plain vanilla, with several metal filing cabinets along one wall, a rank of bookcases behind the gray metal desk, shuttered windows, a bare floor. There was one surprising, refreshing burst of color, a Cézanne poster blazing with orange, yellow and red. The legend at the bottom informed: CHICAGO ART INSTITUTE. Foster’s worn green leather chair creaked as he sat down. On his desk was a paperweight of a mountain scene, several folders, and a double picture frame with studio photographs of a smiling, confident woman and a fresh-faced, eager teenage girl.
Two wooden straight chairs faced the desk. I settled in the near chair, scooted it closer to the desk. “Thank you for seeing me, Chief Inspector. Is Lloyd Drake under arrest?”
Foster’s voice was brisk, but his eyes were troubled. “Mr. Drake is being held on suspicion of a felony. He has been read his rights and has been given access to a lawyer. He and his lawyer are presently conferring.”
If Diana and Neal had been here, I would have given them a thumbs-up.
Almost as if he’d read my mind, Foster’s tired face softened with a brief smile. “Mr. Drake’s children arrived here with the lawyer. They left a few minutes ago to return to the hotel. I understand the lawyer will meet with them there later this evening. Now”—he rested his arms on his desk—“you wished to see me. You have some information?”
“If you don’t mind, Chief Inspector, I have a question. I saw Connor’s room.” He shot me a sharp look but didn’t interrupt. After all, the police investigation there had been completed. “It appears that she was walking toward her dresser and reached for her glasses when she was attacked. This morning you said that Connor did not resist her murderer. This suggests to me that she was attacked without warning. Is this true? Was she attacked from behind?”
He picked up a pen, tapped it softly on the metal desk, an erratic beat. “That appears to be the case.”
“Was the belt from the bathrobe looped over her head, drawn tight?” I pictured Connor, sleepy, nearsighted, hand outstretched to pluck her glasses from the dresser. She could not have been angry or fearful. She was reaching for her glasses…
The tiny clicking sound continued as the pen struck the desktop. Foster was silent for one moment, another.
I sat on the edge of my chair. There was some fact here that worried him.
Finally, he pointed at a closed folder. “The preliminary examination by the pathologist”—he tapped the folder—“revealed that Mrs. Bailey had a large bruise in the middle of her back.”
I understood. Connor opened the hall door. The visitor entered. Connor turned to find her glasses. The attacker moved fast, throwing the garrote over her head, driving a knee into her back. Quick, efficient, ruthless, brutal.
I stared into Foster’s intelligent eyes, alive with imagination and reason. “Chief Inspector, do you honestly believe Lloyd Drake killed Connor that way? That was no crime of passion. That was an execution.” Now I knew why Foster was troubled. Foster understood the significance of Connor’s body lying with her head toward the balcony. Obviously, the murderer stood between the hall door and the dresser, not between the connecting door and the dresser. There was no reason why Lloyd should have knocked on the hall door. Mo
reover, nothing in Lloyd Drake’s character or manner would suggest a planned crime of this nature. Yes, it was reasonable to believe that Lloyd might strangle Connor in the midst of a violent quarrel. But I did not believe—would never believe—that Lloyd planned in advance to kill Connor. It seemed equally obvious that Connor’s murder was the result of a careful, well-thought-out plan…
I reached out, gripped the edges of the chief inspector’s desk. The coolness of the metal seemed in odd contrast to the hot torrent of thought in my mind.
A careful, well-thought-out plan…
I almost caroled my question. “Chief Inspector, why is Lloyd a suspect?”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Collins.” Foster blinked. He looked both disconcerted and irritated, a tired man dealing with irrationality.
I had the answer for him, the answer that I was certain would lead us to a clever and cruel murderer. “Lloyd is a suspect because it was planned from the very first moment that Lloyd should be arrested for Connor’s murder. Lloyd is a suspect,” I spoke slowly, “because he quarreled with Connor and the wedding was canceled. It is essential to understand why that quarrel occurred.” I ticked off the reasons, one by one: “Lloyd quarreled with Connor because she believed the message in stage blood was written by the ghost of Roddy Worrell. She believed Roddy’s ghost had returned because of the apparitions near the tower. This is the critical point, Chief Inspector: the ghost appeared at the tower specifically to frighten Connor. I am as sure of that as I’ve ever been of anything. When I talked to you after that message was found, I thought someone had mounted a campaign to derail the wedding. But it was more than that, much more, Chief Inspector. The point of the ghost was to frighten Connor. Anyone who knew the circumstances of Roddy’s death the year before could be reasonably certain Connor would panic and insist upon returning home, wedding be damned. That, as expected, led to a quarrel between Connor and Lloyd. But the ultimate point of the plan was not to derail the wedding, it was to kill Connor and see Lloyd blamed for the crime. As for the physical evidence against Lloyd, that was easy.” I pulled out the keys to rooms 32 and 34, jangled them. “It’s quite simple to slip behind the desk and get room keys from the pigeonhole cabinet. Yes, this was part of a meticulously planned crime, Chief Inspector. That’s why George Smith was pushed off the cliff. George knew the identity of the person who hired him to create the ghost. George had to die so that he could never expose that person. Connor’s murder—and George’s, too—were planned long before the wedding party ever came to Bermuda. Someone met with George at the BUEI on January sixth to make the arrangements for Roddy’s appearances. That person, Chief Inspector, strangled Connor last night.” I was so confident. “Have you checked with Immigration?”
The answer was so near. All it would take was one quick phone call…
I was puzzled by the expression on Foster’s face, a mixture of pity and sadness.
“I checked, Mrs. Collins.” His slim hand reached out, touched a blue folder.
For an instant, I simply didn’t understand. “Yes?”
He spoke without inflection. “On January sixth none of the following persons entered Bermuda: Connor Bailey, Marlow Bailey, Aaron Reed, Steven Jennings, Lloyd Drake, Diana Drake, Neal Drake, Henrietta Collins.”
He had checked, looking beyond even my suspicions. I’d limited the list to those who were present on the island when Roddy Worrell died. But the chief inspector wasn’t missing any possibilities. “You are sure…” My voice trailed away. There could be no question of a mistake. Every person entering Bermuda shows a passport and fills out an immigration form. My voice was almost a whisper. “But, Chief Inspector…”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Collins.” He pushed back his chair, rose.
Slowly, I stood. I was bewildered. I’d been so certain. This was the only theory that explained the deaths of both George Smith and Connor Bailey. But if no one on my list or the chief inspector’s list had been in Bermuda on January 6, I had to be wrong.
I walked toward the door slowly, wearily, all my energy and hope gone. I gripped the knob, looked back at Foster. “There is no reason why Lloyd would knock on Connor’s hall door.”
He was tidying his stack of folders, clicking off the desk lamp. His evening’s work was done. He came around the desk, held the door for me. “There are always inconsistencies, Mrs. Collins. I have to go by facts. We’ve sent the belt of the robe used to strangle Mrs. Bailey to the RCMP lab in Canada. The belt to one of the robes in Mr. Drake’s room is missing. If the lab matches the belt we sent to Drake’s DNA”—he clicked off the wall switch and the office was plunged into darkness. He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to finish. “Good night, Mrs. Collins.” The chief inspector gave me a weary nod, turned away. I walked back the way I’d come. I was almost to the big open room when I stopped and called out, “Chief Inspector!”
He paused at the far end of the hall.
“Mrs. Worrell is a big woman.” If no one in the wedding party had been in Bermuda on January 6, certainly Mrs. Worrell had very likely been present. That could be confirmed. Thelma Worrell hated Connor Bailey and Thelma Worrell had access to every room in the hotel. Getting the tie to Lloyd’s robe would have been so easy for her.
“Good night, Mrs. Collins.”
I walked up the hill to Reid Street, turned left, hurried past the closed stores, turned down Burnaby Street to the Hog Penny. I had to have food and I was in no hurry to return to the hotel. Diana and Neal would be eager to talk to me, to tell me about the lawyer, and they would look to me for hope. Right now I had no hope to give to them.
I was still confident of their father’s innocence, but I had no idea how we could save him from a murder charge and conviction.
The hostess seated me at a dark wooden table along the north wall. The Hog Penny hadn’t changed in the years since I’d last been there: white-painted ceiling, exposed beams, brick walls with dark wood half-paneling, red carpet with black-and-gray squares. The menu was the same, lots of pub favorites such as bangers and mash and fish and chips. As an unreconstructed and very tired American, I ordered a hamburger with fries. The food was hot and good, the chunky fries a salty delight.
I looked at the hard facts:
Connor would not have opened her door to a stranger.
Connor was not afraid of the visitor whom she admitted.
Connor turned her back on that person and walked to the dresser.
Connor was garroted with the belt to Lloyd’s robe.
Either Lloyd yanked the belt off in anger and murdered Connor or someone had stolen the belt from Lloyd’s room.
If the latter was true, the crime was planned in advance.
If the murder was planned far in advance, that explained the apparent lack of motive on the part of the others in the wedding group. A murderer knowing a crime would occur would be careful indeed to appear on good terms with Connor.
Indications of prior planning:
George’s meeting at the BUEI on January 6.
The appearance of Roddy’s ghost.
The possession of stage blood and the message on Connor’s table.
Then, as earlier, I smashed hard against the unalterable fact that no one in the wedding party had passed through Bermuda Immigration on January 6.
That brought me full circle to Mrs. Worrell.
I took my last sip of coffee, paid my check. By the time I hailed a taxi on Front Street to return to the hotel, I had the beginnings of a plan.
“Finished, Dinny?” Neal stared at Diana’s plate, only a bite or two gone from the club sandwich, the beet salad untouched.
Diana flung down her napkin, jumped up. “I can’t eat.” She paced up and down beside the table. “Grandma, I know you mean well but she’ll just laugh at you.”
I pressed my fingers against my temple. Despite the food at the Hog Penny, I was terribly tired. I’d pushed myself close to exhaustion. But Lloyd was in jail and time was running out. Tonight was the moment to act.
Neal slipped the cover atop Diana’s plate, picked up the dishes from the table and placed them on the room service tray. “Let me put this stuff out in the hall.”
I waited until he returned. “It’s worth a try.”
Neal nodded, his young face pale and tired.
I spoke to Diana’s back. She stood at the balcony door, staring out into the night, fingers twisting a strand of her red-gold hair.
“Look at it this way. There is simply no other explanation. Either your father’s guilty”—the silence in Diana’s room was as heavy and cold as sodden snow—“or Mrs. Worrell killed Connor.” I’d told them everything I knew and I needed their help.
Neal rubbed his nose. “Okay, we’ll give it a try. You want to wait until midnight, go down to her cottage, wake her up—”
I would bully myself inside, no matter what it took. I was sure I could do it. “She’ll let me in when I tell her I have a note from George and he describes seeing her follow Roddy up the tower steps—”
“Wait a minute.” Diana waved her hand toward us. She bent forward. “Something’s going on out there.” She slid open the balcony door, stepped outside.
With the door open, there came the sound of faint shouts, running footsteps.
In four quick strides, Neal was across the room and out on the balcony. “Hey, those must be flashlights!”
“What do you suppose is going on?” Diana and Neal stood at the railing.
I came up behind them. Neal was right, the swoop and dance of lights had to be the beams of flashlights, several in the gardens, at least two others glinting like faraway fireflies among the tangle of shrubs and trees near the rugged shore. I leaned forward, listened. “They are calling for Jasmine!”
“I’ve rung nine-one-one.” Mrs. Worrell’s bony fingers clutched the carnelian beads at her throat. “Surely one of the boys will find her. They know the grounds…” Her voice trailed away. She stood by the front desk, her tired face creased with worry.