“I am. You said, ’Laura smiled through clenched teeth when you beat her ass.’”
Renée clapped her hands. “She really is a hypocrite.”
“I suppose we all are to some extent.”
“Jerry!”
“All right. You’re not.” He hoisted himself out of the enveloping sofa. “The kitchen calls. Can I get you anything?”
“No, dear, just yourself.”
Jerry passed his home office on the way to the kitchen. A lone white sheet stood at attention in the fax machine.
He hesitated just an instant, then strode in and yanked the goddamned thing right out of the machine.
I don’t like being stood up. You’ll hear from me.
“What is your game?” he muttered under his breath as he fed the message to his shredder.
He returned from the kitchen, Coca-Cola in hand, and sat next to his wife, absentmindedly listening. He hadn’t enlightened her concerning his financial crisis. He was confident he could pull that chestnut out of the fire. Balls! He really did have them, as well as nerves. He wasn’t going under. But whoever knew about Roach could command a hefty sum of money. What else does anyone want but money? At least that’s what he wanted, what he worked for all his life. But Sigmond Vormeister was probably dead, and whoever was sending the faxes probably killed the socially inept academic. A flash of fear zigzagged through Jerry’s brain. What was the game?
* * *
Bertha evidenced no interest in Toni’s business, but if Toni had a fax, a FedEx, or mail, Bertha always alerted her employer. Much as Toni wanted Bertha and Bill to live with her in the servants’ quarters, they owned a tidy trailer five miles down the road on two acres of land. No amount of cajoling could pry them off Quittin’ Time, as they styled their little place. Even bonuses and promised raises didn’t sway them.
But as Bertha left, she said there was a fax. And so there was. Toni found it in her office after she’d kissed Miranda, already sound asleep in her bed.
Her hands shook when she read it. “Why now?” she said aloud.
The image of Sigmond Vormeister sprawled in the sand trap made her hands shake even more.
She scanned the top of the fax. There wasn’t a sending number. A bitter smile crossed her lips, because, even if there were, what could she do about it? Whoever knew about Salinger probably wasn’t stupid enough to be tripped up by a fax machine.
She tore up the paper and walked into her bedroom. She turned on all the lights, which made her feel safer. On the other hand, if someone were outside, she’d make a better target. She shut the plantation shutters and sat down on her bed.
“I was just a kid when…,” she drew in a deep breath, “when all that happened. Just a kid. Who in the hell is this?” She put her face in her hands, took them away, and shook her head again. “I am not going to cry.”
* * *
The next morning Silas Macgruder, eighty-eight years old, stroked balls on the putting green. Although he was slightly bent over, his eyesight was excellent. He came to the course early in the morning to practice. Eighteen holes taxed him these days, but he could knock the ball around for nine and he wasn’t slow about it, either.
This morning Mignon Gervase was to go out with him. Just the two of them. That pleased him enormously. Mignon Gervase oozed sex appeal. The nearness of her, the fragrance of her perfume, rejuvenated him.
As Silas watched Mignon pull into the parking lot, he heard a bloodcurdling scream from the area of the sixth hole. He chuckled. The good Reverend Doctor Armbruster must have sliced the ball to kingdom come.
Then he noticed a greens keeper driving like mad for the clubhouse, the go-cart swaying dangerously on the swells and rolls of the course.
The young driver, Ray Flynt, cut the motor and vaulted out of the white cart. He ran into the pro shop.
The next minute, Bill Oberlin, the golf pro, shot out the door, heading for the cart, but was overtaken and passed by Ray. As Ray was the star quarterback for Chesapeake Community College, Bill couldn’t keep up with him. The looks on their faces alerted Silas to the fact that this might be more serious than yet another tantrum on the course by Peter, a man convinced the devil invented golf. Yet Peter couldn’t give up the game.
Turning his back with some reluctance on the delectable Mignon, Silas dropped his putter and hustled, joining Ray and Bill at the lip of the sand trap. The three men peered down at Dr. Sigmond Vormeister, now in rigor mortis. Doctor Vormeister didn’t look good in death, Silas thought, but then the poor fellow hadn’t looked very good in life, either.
* * *
Capt. Diane Robards regarded Officers John Carnegie and Leland Ford as wannabes. Security in gated communities overflowed with creaking ex-cops on the way down or young kids hoping to make the grade. She’d made the grade fifteen years ago. Being a woman had set her apart from the other trainees in her class. They’d let her know it, too. She’d kept her mouth shut, her head down, and she’d worked like a dog. She’d graduated at the top of her class. Now she’d made captain, and those young men who had once made her life miserable answered to her.
If Diane had been a vengeful person, she would have taken pleasure in that. She wasn’t. She lived for her job. The apprehension of criminals, the solving of crimes, the meting out of justice on those few occasions when she could, commanded her attention.
She loved her job.
“Very good of you officers not to allow anyone near the body,” Diane complimented Ford and Carnegie. Praise a fool that you might make him useful.
“Been dead awhile.” Leland Ford pushed his right fingers into the palm of his left hand.
The medical unit awaited orders from Diane. Her team was finishing up a careful, complete inspection of the body and the site.
John Carnegie nervously laughed. “We should be thankful he wasn’t here too long.” He pinched his nose.
“What time did you two go off duty last night?”
“Twelve,” Leland Ford answered.
“Do you have a routine before you leave, a checklist?” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Well, we, uh, drive down the main street and usually the side streets. Then we park at the station,” John Carnegie replied, irritated and nervous.
“You pass the clubhouse on your way to the station?”
“Yes.”
“And you did so last night?”
“Yes,” Leland Ford again answered.
“Nothing out of the ordinary?” Diane smiled, trying to lessen their tension. She knew she’d gain more if she didn’t act superior to them.
“No,” John Carnegie said.
She lowered her voice. “What did you think of the victim?”
Being asked an opinion brightened John Carnegie. “A whiner. He’d call two and three times a week. Someone was playing their music too loud. A car drove past his house and he didn’t recognize it. One of those.”
“I see.” She smiled again. “But he sounds like an observant person.”
“You got that right.” Leland tipped his hat back on his head. “One nosy SOB.”
“So, he offended people?” she continued.
“That’s one way to put it; but you know he’d try to suck up to them, too.” Leland was pretty observant himself.
“Captain Robards.” The medical officer called her.
“Excuse me a moment. I’ll try not to keep you much longer, but I’m going to need your help.”
“No problem.” Leland beamed.
Diane walked over to the edge of the sand pit, marveling at how the groomed grass felt like a spongy carpet. “Jordan.”
“We’re done.”
“Okay, take him away. Guess you’ll need an extra big bag. Always difficult when they’re in rigor.”
“Hey, we come prepared.” Jordan climbed out of the pit, slipping a bit. “Did you notice there were no footprints in the sand? When we arrived, I mean?”
“I did. Had Greg fingerprint the rake. Nothing.”
“Yeah, it is.” She breathed in the fragrance of early morning laced with a top note of the Truxton River not a quarter of a mile away as the crow flies. “Most of what we see is pretty straightforward. A shoots B or stabs B or bludgeons B. The truth is, most murders are spur-of-the-moment, loss-of-control kind of events. This doesn’t have that look. In fact, we won’t know what killed Dr. Vormeister until the lab work comes back. It wasn’t the gash on the forehead.”
“No.”
“And, Jordan, was he killed here, or was he dumped here?”
“That won’t take too long to figure out. The autopsy ought to tell us that. Why, you got a feeling?”
“I do.”
Jordan put his hands on his hips. “Well?”
“I got a feeling we’ll be doing a lot of work and we’ll be besieged. The kind of people who live at Gryphon Gate aren’t used to their world being rocked.”
“Uh-huh. Here comes one now.”
Striding across the manicured grass, filled with the importance of his mission, came Henry Drysdale. He introduced himself as the mayor. Wanted information. He could have been more offensive, Diane supposed, but as it was he was offensive enough.
“This is terrible. Terrible,” the mayor sputtered. “We’ve never had anything like this happen at Gryphon Gate. Must have been some intruder.”
Leland Ford, overhearing, took this as a slur. “Mayor Drysdale, John and I were on duty last night and everything was in order. I took the precaution of checking with the gatehouse. No one not sponsored by a member came through that gate, and after seven in the evening only residents drove in or out.”
“Good work, Officer,” Diane praised him. She judged Leland to be in his middle twenties, well-built, and methodical. He could make it on the regular forces if he wanted to. She wondered why he hadn’t. Money? Trouble getting the time to go to school, then the police academy? Or maybe he was burdened with some family problem. The other one, Carnegie, well, he was filler mostly.
Henry Drysdale’s mouth twitched. “Prescient of you.” He glanced toward the parking lot where Bill Oberlin and Ray Flynt were preventing people from coming into the club. Nothing they could do about Silas Macgruder, now sitting patiently on the bench at the putting green. He’d been told to stay put.
Henry returned his attention to Diane. “I’ll have to issue a press release. Would you like to be there?”
“Mayor Drysdale, you aren’t going to issue a press release until we clear the crime scene. And no, I don’t want to be there. The media will be camped in front of headquarters. You’ve got to watch those people. Sharks.”
“I can handle them,” Henry bragged. “In my twenties I was station manager at Channel Six in Baltimore. Worked my way up. Bought the station. Bought some more. Finally sold them all to Metromedia.”
“I’m sure you can handle anything.” Diane thought quite the opposite. “What is your relationship to the victim?”
“Sigmond? An involved citizen. Never missed a council meeting. Served on the board. Very academic man, as you would suppose, given that he has, had, his Ph.D. in sociology.”
“Did you like him?”
John Carnegie and Leland Ford, perhaps twenty yards away, held their breath, hoping not to make a sound. They wanted to hear this.
“Well, he was a very dedicated resident.”
“Did you like him?”
“Uh, I got along with him.”
“Did you like him?”
“Am I a suspect?”
“Mayor Drysdale, a resident of your community has been murdered. Your thoughts, your impressions are important to the case. Did you like him?”
“No.”
“Can you think of why anyone would like to kill him?”
“Not really. He didn’t irritate anyone that much. It would make a lot more sense if I had been the victim.” He laughed. “Lightning rod. All you have to do is be in a position of authority and you’re a lightning rod.”
“Thank you for your time.” She adroitly dismissed him, although he had been the one to barge in to put her in her place.
“Uh, any suspects?”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Henry reluctantly retreated toward the clubhouse.
“Officer Carnegie, would you make sure the ambulance can get out? It appears that your golf pro and the other fellow, Ray,”—she was good with names—“can keep them out of the parking lot, but they can’t keep them from clogging up the road leading to it.”
“Sure thing.” John, with a lift to his walk, now that he was in charge of something, moved toward the parking lot. He heard the medical crew grunt as they hoisted Vormeister in the body bag into the ambulance. The bag was stretched out, due to the deceased’s arms and legs being at right angles.
“Let’s you and I talk to this elderly gentleman at the putting green. What do you know about Silas Macgruder?”
John smiled. “Neat old guy. Sharp as a tack. Plays golf almost every day. They say he made his money at IBM. I don’t know. And,” his smile broadened, “he loves the women.”
“I like him already.” She smiled back at John, noticing that his eyes were the color of dark honey.
“Captain Robards, thank you for giving me the chance to observe proper procedures.”
“It’s a lot of legwork. Kind of like putting together a puzzle. I know that sounds trite, but really, that’s what solving a murder is. People become enamored of pathology, high-tech stuff you see on TV, but it’s still a lot of legwork and a little luck.”
As they approached Silas, he looked Captain Robards up and down. He liked what he saw.
So did Leland Ford.
* * *
When Vanessa Smart-Drysdale heard the news about Sigmond Vormeister, she hung up the wall phone in her sunny kitchen and wondered if, by sending her to the sixth hole, the sender of the fax had intended to frame her for murder. A lump rose in her throat. She swallowed hard. Yes, she suffered a knot of fear, but she wasn’t a wimp. She’d survive to spite whoever had sent her that fax, and if she could, she’d do him in first.
Whoever it was knew her movements and knew about the condominium in Alexandria. Damn.
* * *
When Jerry Lynch heard the news, he feigned shock. Anka ran into the breakfast room. She’d just heard it from the au pair the Upshaws employed.
“Why would anyone kill that silly man?” Renée was incredulous.
“Maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Jerry shrugged.
“Jerry, how can you be so cold?” Renée chastised him.
“He was a pain in the ass. I wouldn’t wish him dead, my dear, but I can’t pretend I liked him.”
“May I go down to the club?” Anka’s voice rose.
“Ghoul.” Renée laughed at her.
“All right by me, unless you have something pressing, honey.” Jerry patted his wife’s hand.
“Oh, go ahead, Anka, but don’t be too long, and don’t be a pest. People will be quite upset. They aren’t all like my husband.”
“One of a kind.” She tossed that line over her shoulder and disappeared out the door.
Renée’s eyes narrowed. “She’s getting big for her britches.”
“She’s young. This is exciting.”
“You’re too soft where she’s concerned.”
Of course, the opposite was the truth.
* * *
Toni, driving back from dropping Miranda at school, saw the flashing lights at the clubhouse. She shuddered and prayed she had wiped down the sand pit rake thoroughly.
Why was Sigmond out at the sixth hole? Although she wanted to stick to the facts, she considered that Sigmond Vormeister might also have received a fax. If so, what was his secret? Did he attack whoever lured him there? Or, was he an innocent bystander? Her instincts told her he wasn’t. Sigmond had been right where she was supposed to be. No, Sigmond had a purpose at the sixth hole. And he died for it.
To
ni wasn’t ready to die. She had a beautiful daughter, lived in paradise—at least up until now—and she had a net worth of many, many zeros. Death wasn’t an option. She never thought of herself as a brave person, but it crossed her mind that she would kill to keep all this, kill to keep her secret.
3
“DAMN IT TO HELL!” PARKER Upshaw snatched a copy of the Washington Post off his desk and sent it sailing across the room, where it settled into an untidy heap on the Yagcibedir carpet. His great-grandfather had haggled for that carpet in Constantinople, rolled it up, lashed it to the outside of his satchel, and after a week-long trans-Atlantic voyage, it had graced the office floor of every CEO of Upshaw, Tracey, and Associates since Roosevelt was president. The first one. If the Upshaw men had been given to pacing—which they were not—the carpet would have been threadbare.
This is not a crisis. Parker repeated the phrase like a mantra, chair tilted back at a comfortable angle, his fingers drumming a soft tattoo on its padded leather arms. Black Monday was a crisis. So was the tech meltdown of 2000. And Enron? It made his head throb to think about the chunk of his portfolio that had gone south with that gang of white-collar bandits. No, this was just an annoyance, like a biting fly. And he’d deal with it. Then back to business as usual.
Upshaw, Tracey, and Associates rescued companies. Turned them around. When you file for Chapter 11, the first call you make is to your lawyers. The second, to U.T. and A.
His own damn fault, really. He’d actually volunteered for this headache, volunteered to run for president of the Gryphon Gate Homeowners Association, never dreaming he’d be elected. Parker sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. Only six more weeks until the end of his term, then those fanatics at the American Wildlife Confederation would be Jerry Lynch’s problem.
Parker leaned across the blotter and pressed a button on the intercom. “Kris?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get Manny on the line, will you?”
“Sure. Right away.”
“And Kris?”
“Yes?”
“Hold all my calls. If I have to dance the two-step around one more tree hugger, I think I’ll blow my brains out.”
As if to add insult to injury, the sun suddenly emerged from a cloud, shot across the Potomac River and through his window, fixing the offending front-page article in its beam like a spotlight—ACTIVIST GROUP SPEAKS OUT ON MUTE SWAN PROPOSAL. “Tell them I’m on safari.” Parker suppressed an insane urge to giggle.
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