Grand Prize: Murder!

by Vivian Conroy

  “Coombs has to be on the other side of the country by now, maybe even in Europe. She is of no use to us.” Vicky exhaled. “Cash would call me if the fingerprints turned up something. But I doubt they will.”

  “Well, she has to have had some reason for her impersonation. It has to have been something illegal. Why not take up a job under your own name?”

  “Maybe Bella knew her and would have rejected her?” Vicky patted Marge’s dog that rested its head on her upper leg. It was as if the chocolate Lab sensed she was upset and wanted to comfort her. Chip looked at her with his friendly amber eyes. She stroked his soft fur and relaxed a little.

  Marge poured her another glass of wine. Her husband and kids were out playing football, and they had the house to themselves. “I wish that we knew what she looks like without that hair. It was the most conspicuous thing about her. We should have known she was diverting our attention. Like a clown, you know. Everybody remembers his red hair and big shoes. Not how tall he was or what color eyes he had.”

  Vicky nodded. “Yeah, the real Lisa Coombs could have short blonde hair for all we know. Maybe the black hair was a wig? The guard showed himself around town with a mustache and it changed his face completely. When I saw him at the party, talking to Cash, I wasn’t sure if it was the same man. I did think his posture and walk kind of familiar, but…”

  She reached out to accept the wineglass from Marge, then froze. “What did you just say about rejecting someone?”

  Marge frowned, startled by the sudden question. “I uh… I said Lisa Coombs might have called herself that, because her real name could be known to Bella and she knew she would never be hired if…”

  “That’s it!” Vicky sat up. “Rejected.”

  Chip lifted his head and sat up as well as if he’d caught on to her excitement.

  Vicky rushed, “Bella told me that Grace Dinks wanted to cover her book tour. Like be on her team all the time? Bella said no. Could…”

  Marge stared at her. “…Grace Dinks and Lisa Coombs be one and the same person? No. Impossible. Lisa had a completely different voice. Low and throaty. Grace Dinks screeches all the time.”

  “You can disguise your voice. Lowering it is not that hard.” Vicky punched her fist into her other hand. “Think about it. Dinks appears as soon as Coombs has left town. The car is recovered at an airport, suggesting Coombs flew out of state, but there is not a trace of Coombs actually having boarded any plane. So nobody knows if she really flew out. And nobody knows if Dinks really came from Canada like she claims. It would also explain how Dinks wasn’t seen around town before the murder, but she does seem to know so many things about Bella’s team.”

  “She claimed Bella treated her staff like dirt,” Marge added excitedly. “That was her personal experience of course. She was undercover all the time. She acted so low-key that nobody noticed her. Bella was perfectly nice to her, but I bet Grace felt she was condescending. Grace thinks everybody has it in for her.”

  Vicky’s elation was washing away as she considered another angle. “But she did seduce DuBree, and I bet he doesn’t know she is a reporter. That could turn very ugly. We better warn him.”

  “Warn him?” Marge sat up. “Why should we? He is not our friend.”

  “Maybe not, but we do need him, for damage control.” Vicky gestured at the corner table where a cordless phone sat. “I have to make a few calls. First the real Lisa Coombs in Florida to ask if she changed places with Grace Dinks. That will give us certainty that Grace is involved. Then I will call Grace herself.”

  “What?” Marge was now really dumbfounded. “You’re going to call our archenemy and inform her that we saw through her ruse? What on earth for?”

  “Because that will give us leverage. We can force her to dance to our tune for a change.” Vicky smiled. “Believe me, this will work. Let’s have that phone.”

  Still bemused, Marge tossed her the cordless, and Vicky leaned back to punch in the number.

  Lisa Coombs answered just before her voice mail service would have kicked in. In the background lively music played. Vicky could picture her on the beach, under the palms with a piña colada in her hand. Having a great time.

  “Hello?” Vicky said. “Is this Lisa Coombs? Yes, there is a little problem. You are supposed to be working for us, only you are not.”

  Silence.

  Vicky continued in an urgent tone, “You were supposed to join Bella Brookes’ book tour, right?”

  “Uh, somebody should be there.” A slight panic vibrated in the voice of the girl on the other end of the line.

  “She left. After a murder.”

  “Murder?” Now the panic was rising.

  “That is, Lisa Coombs left after a murder and since that is you… I think we have to send the police your way to arrest you.”

  “Wait a minute. I was never there. I never joined the book tour. I can prove it. I have been here since last Thursday.”

  Quiet muttering. Then, “She told me I had nothing to worry about. She told me she would take care of everything. Murder? What murder? Is Bella Brookes dead? I wish I had never agreed to this. But I was here on the island. All of the time. I can prove it.”

  “Who took your place?” Vicky asked.

  Marge was listening in attentively.

  “Grace Dinks, the reporter. She gave me money for it. Said it was important and she wanted a scoop. I had no idea that… The bitch. She must have known that there would be a murder and she’d hang it on me.”

  Vicky looked at Marge and held her thumb up. Marge made the same gesture at her.

  Lisa Coombs used some more not too nice terms for Grace Dinks. “I was here all the time. I have witnesses.”

  Vicky wasn’t so much interested in those as in Grace’s part in it all and asked quickly, “Why did Grace Dinks take your place?”

  “I don’t know. I just gave her the information, told her where to go and what to do. I instructed her what the work is like. I did it before for another author. I was good at it. I bet she flunked it. Great, I will never work in publishing again.”

  Vicky asked to be on the safe side, “Are you willing to swear to all of this?”

  “Of course. I’m telling the truth.”

  “Great. Then you can expect to hear from the police later for a sworn statement. You need not worry too much as long as you do tell the truth.”

  “Oh, believe me, I will. I have no reason to be protecting her.” Lisa Coombs swore on about Grace Dinks, and Vicky hung up. She grinned at Marge. “Someone who is not too fond of our star reporter. Now I can call Grace and turn the tables on her.”

  She found the number and called. Grace answered quickly. “Hello?” It sounded eager, as if she was expecting a certain person.

  “Vicky Simmons here.”

  “Hey, if you are going to sob again about your reputation, forget it. I’ve got another explosive cover for tomorrow morning. You just wait and see…”

  “No, you wait and see,” Vicky said icily. “The Gazette can still change headlines till midnight. I know the editor intimately.”

  “I bet you do.” Grace sounded insinuating.

  Vicky paid no attention and pushed on, “I bet the whole town will perk up and take notice when we write how the nice, efficient assistant who was here to assist Bella Brookes on her book tour was really a reporter out for a cheap score. How she hid herself under an enormous wig and behind a fake friendly demeanor, but had a hidden agenda all along. How she was at the party where the guard was killed and could have killed him herself to create the story. Your fingerprints were found.”

  Vicky meant to say on the car at the airport, but Grace snapped at once, “I was in the stupid conservatory, all right, but not to kill the guy. I met someone there.”

  “Yes, Paul DuBree. I saw him kissing you, or rather Lisa Coombs. Was surprised the quiet assistant had hooked the big PR man, but coming to think of it now, it is not so odd. You played him for a fool, and he will soon know it. Now he is n
ot a man to antagonize.”

  “Ha, when I pushed my microphone into his face, he didn’t even recognize me. He kissed me like crazy and a few days later he does not know me again. Dear Michael Danning too, he talked to me at the party and hadn’t the faintest idea it was me, Grace. Deception. It works every time.”

  Vicky waited a moment. “The police have found the car you left at the airport. It’s covered in your prints. They will have you soon enough. Now we can do this two ways: either you go to the police and tell them why you posed as Lisa Coombs of your own free will. Or I will have the sheriff bring you in and hold you. You can occupy the cell next to Bella Brookes. Will be kind of hard to write up your little stories from there.”

  “You have nothing to hold me on. I will call my editor and…”

  “You can’t tell him that you lied to get on the book tour. Or that you tried to seduce Paul DuBree. It’s unethical, and editors don’t like it. They will drop you like a hot potato. If you want to have any chance at all, of ever making it in this business, you better confess and cease your activities before it all gets out.”

  Vicky could hear Grace thinking on the other end of the line. “If I go to the police and confess it all, will you then keep it quiet?” she asked cautiously.

  “As long as you don’t turn out to be the killer.”

  “Of course not. What did I know about this guy? I guess he had some interesting story, huh, or he would not be dead, but I didn’t know about him that night. I was busy working other angles.”

  Grace laughed ruefully. “I was wrong there, but then again how could I have known? No regrets, just a forward movement. You want me to fess up to the sheriff? All right, I will. In exchange for your silence.”

  “Fine with me,” Vicky said. “But no more fake front pages. You can say on social media what you want I suppose, but at least do that under your real name. Be Grace Dinks and be proud of it.”

  Grace exhaled as if she wanted to say Vicky had a lot of nerve to talk to her like that, but then she didn’t say anything.

  Vicky pressed, “Do we have a deal?”

  “We have a deal. I will call the police right away. I know your loved-up sheriff will report back to you at once, so you can make sure I did do it.”

  Grace laughed disparagingly. “I don’t understand why you settled for the sheriff, though. Or has Michael Danning already dropped you like a brick? He is good at that. We spent two fabulous weeks in Mexico before our assignment started, but then it was over for him. Can’t commit. Oh, well…”

  And she hung up.

  Vicky clenched the phone. The idea of Michael having an affair with this woman was disgusting. Why would he have cared for the loud and overambitious Grace, who had just used him and the entire team as stepping stones for her career?

  Then again Grace might have acted very nice to him at first, and Michael might have found her attractive. Paul DuBree had fallen for her too, right?

  Maybe Grace had known about Celine when she had met Michael and had pretended to feel sorry for him.

  Vicky could just picture them together, Grace playing the part of the nice considerate colleague who was there to support Michael when he felt down, who worked her way into his confidence, until one night working late they had looked each other in the eye and …

  No, she didn’t want to picture any more. Even if they had been an item, it was over now.

  Still, it hurt.

  Marge looked her over, waiting for a report on the call. “And?” she pressed.

  Vicky shook herself up and forced a cheerful tone. “Success. She will call Cash and fess up. In exchange for my silence. We are not to tell anyone she was Lisa Coombs. I think we can manage that, right?”

  “For the moment,” Marge said, crossing her arms over her chest. “If I read Grace Dinks right, she won’t play by the rules for long, and as soon as she violates the agreement, we can do the same. I have a feeling we might need the information sooner or later to confront somebody or get something in exchange.”

  Vicky sighed and sat back. Marge was right. They had won a little but there was still a lot to do. She had to ignore the personal blow Grace’s remark about her affair with Michael had delivered and focus on the case. Part of the puzzle was now resolved. But Vicky still wasn’t sure why Grace had joined Bella’s team.

  She wasn’t sure either that the greedy reporter had not killed the guard. Maybe because he had seen through her disguise, or had taken pictures of DuBree and her?

  Then there was DuBree himself.

  The list Bella had given her had the cheated lover on it, right?

  Or no, it had been something else. The ex, the old flame.

  Why couldn’t Vicky make sense of that?

  Or of the allusion to gambling. It had to mean something.

  In the morning the Glen Cove Gazette looked very normal. Michael had limited his account of the murder case to the short statement that the police were following up leads and reported they had made progress, but there was no big break in the case as yet.

  He had devoted most of the front page to pictures of people running around Glen Cove with tablet computers trying to find the coordinates in the treasure hunt. Vicky read that it was now revealed that the suspect to choose had been the cozy author. All participants who had chosen the other candidates had been eliminated, and only those who had chosen her were still in the game. Some of them would by now have the wrong coordinates and be on a wild goose chase, while others were doing better. But the grand prizewinner would not be known till the big announcement on Friday.

  Not a word about the real-life cozy author still in jail.

  On her way to the store Cash called her on her cell phone to report that one Grace Dinks, a ‘horrible screeching type’, had called him the night before, quite out of the blue, to confess that she was Lisa Coombs, or rather that she had posed as Lisa Coombs and that she was stopping by the station to tell him all about it.

  “She should be here soon and I will ask her some tough questions,” he promised, “to rattle her cage.”

  Vicky reminded him that he was dealing with a reporter and a rabid one, so he’d better watch out what he was saying. She especially warned him not to be forthcoming with any information about Bella Brookes and her possible relationship to the dead guard. If Grace Dinks got a hold of the old art theft story, she would run with that, and the damage would be uncontrollable.

  About to open up the store, Vicky spotted some nice red apples at the Joneses across the road and went in to buy some, along with some groceries for Claire. She had probably exaggerated her rheumatism at the restaurant the other day to lure the deputy away, but Vicky knew her mother really had aching joints at times and she loved to help out just a little. She could bring the groceries over during lunch break and see how Mom and the dogs were doing.

  Bob Jones was helping customers and greeted her with a wink. “Morning, how is the treasure hunt coming along? I’m out. I thought it was the actor’s wife. The cozy author seemed a little too uh…poignant for me.”

  He watched her alertly. “Like some bad joke, you know. She is in jail and she is the suspect in her own murder game?”

  “I guess it was an unfortunate idea from marketing, but whoever came up with it couldn’t guess somebody would get murdered here. It was probably the furthest thing from their minds.”

  On the other hand, Lisa Coombs had suggested it, who was really Grace Dinks. That was rather poignant.

  Bob Jones hitched a brow. “Come on. Are you really telling me they have nothing to do with it? Why can’t one of them be the killer? To frame her for the murder and be rid of her? You never know what people will do when they feel snubbed. There was this woman in the store the other day telling everybody what a terrible employer Bella Brookes was, said she humiliated her team all day long. Those feelings could create a…bad atmosphere, you know.”

  Vicky nodded thoughtfully. “You were at the party too, right?”

  He seemed to want to d
eny it, and she said quickly, “I know you weren’t invited, but sneaked in. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody about it. I just wanted to know if you saw anything suspicious.”

  “Well, there was a lot of going up and down. Like there was something really special to see upstairs.”

  “Bella did tell me that Lilian’s brother Sydney showed her some art.” Vicky frowned.

  Bob laughed. “I thought that Sydney Haverton was just using that as an excuse to spend some time with Bella. She is a very attractive woman. And Mrs. Rowland was obviously not happy to see them together.”

  Lover, ex-husband, old flame.

  Old flame?

  Bella and Sydney?

  Bob Jones surveyed her. “You look like you suddenly see the light.”

  “Oh, I just remembered something I have to do. But nothing important. Can you get me six of those big red apples?”

  “For you I’ll pick the nicest ones.” Bob winked again and walked out to collect them.

  Mrs. Jones came over, tapping a pencil against her long thin nose. Vicky shrank, remembering the run-in with her husband at the Gazette’s offices the other day about the accusations on the fake Gazette’s front page.

  Looking after Bob, Mrs. Jones said in a disapproving tone, “He is nice to the customers, but he takes forever serving them.”

  “A little attention goes a long way. I bet elderly people especially like it.”

  “I suppose so.” Mrs. Jones put the pencil down on the counter and gave Vicky an accusing look. “I can use some help. My husband is all afire over this scavenger hunt thing you set up. Haven’t seen him in days. Michael Danning assured us that the Gazette we got was a fake one, some tasteless joke, and the accusations in it totally false.”

  Mrs. Jones continued, “Danning seems certain that there will be a grand prizewinner in the end. But even if there is, I guess it won’t be my husband. We never won anything in our entire lives.”

  “Maybe Bob will win it for you? Oh, no, he just told me he was already eliminated.” Vicky smiled. “Still it is nice of him to spend his entire summer with you.”