by Blair Howard
“I was asleep, in one of the spare rooms, in the east wing. She threw me out….”
“So you have no alibi?” I said, getting up again.
“I… I… I….”
“Oh forget it,” I said. “Where can I find Leo Jr.?”
“I haven’t seen him. But he’s probably upstairs, in his office. He almost always is.”
“What are you doing?” Kate asked as I headed for the stairs. “That was no interview.”
“Yep, it was. He has no alibi. That’s all I need to know for right now. There’s nothing more we can do until Daisy is finished processing the Margolises’ rooms and we get the results, except try to establish alibis. I did that, and he ain’t got one. And neither, I bet, does his ever-lovin’ stepbrother-in-law.”
And I was right. He didn’t. His wife, Lucy, had also tossed him out after a screaming match about money. She wanted some, and he didn’t have any, and wouldn’t ask his father. He’d spent the night on the Chesterfield sofa in his office.
“What now?” Kate asked, as we descended the stairs and walked out into the foyer.
“I want to go see Sebastian Carriere. I think a ride down to the docks is in order. I also want to see how easy it would be for him to get to the house from there, on foot.”
-----
Sebastian Carriere was on his boat when we arrived at the docks. I could see him doing something on the flying bridge as I wandered toward his berth.
“Kate,” I said quietly, so as not to be heard, “go wander around the docks. Check with the other boat owners. See if the boat was here yesterday. More to the point, see if you can find out if he was here.”
She stuck her hands in the pockets of her shorts and wandered off, stopping here and there to admire the boats.
“Mr. Starke,” he called down, leaning over the rail so that he could see me. “I thought you’d never get here. Is that the lovely lieutenant I see over there? What’s she doing, checking my alibi? Well, good luck with that. They’re a closed-mouth bunch around here. You want to come aboard and chat a little, or have you come to arrest me?”
“I have no power to arrest you,” I said, “but I will come aboard.”
“And so you shall, me hearty. So you shall.”
Jeez, enough with the Long John Silver impersonations already.
The boat was a forty-eight-foot Riviera sport fisherman named Gabby II.
What, I wondered, happened to Gabby I?
Now I didn’t know anything about boats, at least not then, but just looking at this one I could see at least half a million dollars.
I stepped aboard, and Carriere held out his left hand for me to shake—hmmm, left handed, okay. I took it with my right hand—awkward to do—and immediately became involved in a test of strength. He was strong and fit, but he was no match for me, and I watched his smile melt away when I stepped up the pressure. It was over in a heartbeat, and he turned quickly and led the way to a table at the stern.
“Please, sit,” he said. I did. “What can I do for you, Mr. Starke?”
It was at that moment I realized I didn’t like this man. There was something about his attitude, his demeanor, but mostly it was his eyes. They were almost black, like a snake’s. They put me in no mood for social niceties.
“Where were you last night between eight and two this morning?”
He tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. “Here, on the boat. Why?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Alicia Margolis was murdered last night. Can you prove you were here all night?” I watched his eyes—not a flicker.
“Alicia’s dead? God. I can’t prove anything, no. Randy, my deck hand, was here until just after ten, but after he left…. I wasn’t feeling too good, so I went to bed.”
“How did you get along with Mrs. Margolis?”
He frowned. “What do you mean? I didn’t. I didn’t know her. Well, I’d met her, but that was about it. That woman and her husband move and live in a different world. You did notice that I’m not white, right?”
I knew what he meant; I also knew he had issues about his race. I also knew that he was right; the likes of the Martan family did not mix with the lower classes, much less when those people were of a different ethnicity.
I nodded, rose from my seat, and made to leave. I stopped at the rail and turned. “Nice view of the house,” I said.
The smile he gave me was tinged with sarcasm, and so was his reply.
“True,” he said. “And what you’re hinting at is also true. It’s an easy five-minute walk from here to the side entrance. I’ve done it many times; both ways, but not last night, and not on Saturday, either.”
I nodded. There was no humor in the smile I gave him, just promise.
“Have a good day, Mr. Carriere.”
“You too, Mr. Starke, and take care, you hear?”
I walked east from the docks, across a small bridge and out onto the third fairway. From where I was standing, the rear of the Mount was maybe a quarter mile away, certainly less than five hundred yards. I walked back to the bridge, a humpy wooden structure that joined the mainland to the marina. I stood for a moment, my hands on the rail, looking both ways, back at the Gabby II and then at the Mount, high on the rise to the east. It’s easily doable. But it’s really exposed. Surely someone would have seen him. Hmmm, but maybe not. And if they did, they probably wouldn’t have taken any notice….
“I didn’t do it, Mr. Starke.”
I looked around. I hadn’t heard him following me, and he was about to step onto the bridge.
He joined me at the rail. “Yes, I could have easily made it up there, but I didn’t. Not either time. I loved Gabby, and I didn’t give a flying monkey for Alicia. I didn’t kill either of them.”
There was something in his voice that made me inclined to believe him.
“No. I don’t believe you did. Do you have any idea who might have?”
He shook his head. “No. I wasn’t that tight with the family. Like I said on the boat, I’m not exactly the kind of person any of them wanted her to marry, so I pretty much kept myself to myself. They’re a weird bunch though, especially Evander. If I had to choose, he would be the one.”
“What about the butler, Moore?”
“What about him?”
“Alicia Margolis accused him of trying to rape her. She said you stopped him. True?”
“Jeez, that woman. No. In fact, I think that the opposite is probably true. I walked into the living room just as he pushed her away. She flew at him, claws first. I… restrained her.”
I nodded. “Was Gabrielle having an affair with Moore?”
His eyes narrowed. He looked troubled. “Perhaps she was. I don’t know.” And with that he left and walked back to the Gabby II. I stood for a moment, watching him go, thinking, and then I walked west along the dock, searching for Kate and admiring the boats along the way. I wondered what kind of a person would want to invest so much in such a luxury, and then it hit me.
I was.
Yeah. I could do that, so long as I had someone to sail it for me.
I found Kate sitting outside a small shack sipping on the Calypso Key version of a smoothie. I ordered one for myself, with a splash of rum in it—perfect—and a small bowl of conch salad, and sat down beside her.
“So, what did you find out?” I asked her.
“Not much. No one claims to have seen him, that day or this, and there he is, large as life.” She waved her straw in the general direction of the Gabby II. I looked around and saw the tiny figure back up on the flying bridge. He had his hands on the rail and was obviously watching us, although from that distance how he could see much was beyond me.
“They’re not saying he wasn’t here, just that they don’t remember seeing him.”
“He told me they were a pretty tight bunch, that you wouldn’t get much out of them. One thing I do know is that it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to make it across the g
olf course to the house, even at night, but I don’t think he did.”
“How come? That second sight of yours kicking in again?”
“Something like that, but no; I really think he loved Gabrielle. I don’t think he would have harmed her, and that, by default, means he didn’t do the other one either. He also told me Moore didn’t try to rape Alicia.”
“I figured,” she said.
“I asked him if he thought Gabrielle was having an affair with Moore. He said he didn’t know, but that it was possible. The question seemed to upset him. Not surprising, I suppose.”
She nodded. I looked at my watch. It was almost one o’clock.
“Let’s go,” I said. “I’d like to spend some time with Amanda this afternoon.”
“How’s that going?” she asked as we walked to the car.
I looked sideways at her. “Me and Amanda? Fine. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I was just wondering. Never in a million years would I have believed you’d ever settle down… and, now don’t take this the wrong way, certainly not with Amanda. You and she have quite a history.”
“That thing she did to me on TV, you mean?”
She nodded.
“I got over that a long time ago. You’re right though; who would have thought it? So, seeing as we’re on the subject; how about you and Bob?”
She took her time answering, then, “It’s good, I suppose. He hasn’t said so, but I know he loves me. Do I love him though? That’s the question.”
“Well. Do you?”
“It’s only been a few weeks. I could do a whole lot worse, I guess. He’s a big old bear, but soft as a kitten. He can kill a man without a second thought, yet I’ve seen him scooping bugs out of the pool. I could definitely do worse.”
“You sure could,” I said.
She smiled at me. “You’re so biased. He’s like a brother to… you…. Harry, I’m so sorry. That was so thoughtless of me.”
“Henry, you mean? Nah. We can’t hide that away as if it never happened. It did. I’ll live with it. But back to you and Bob. I hope you two can make it work.”
“Me too,” she said, a little wistfully. “Me too. You and Amanda seem happy together. I could really do with some of that.”
Chapter 27
Sunday November 19, Early Morning
The sun rose over the ocean, the herald of another beautiful day. Me? Once again, I hadn’t slept a whole lot. Amanda? She’d slept like a dead dog. As usual.
I was out early. I went for a run along the beach well before daylight. I arrived back at the cottage to find her still asleep. I took a long, hot shower—that’s the place I get most of my bright ideas, but this time nothing came, and it bothered me. No, the whole scenario bothered me, and I couldn’t put my finger on why.
I dried myself off, made coffee—two cups—and went into the bedroom; she was just beginning to stir.
I handed her a cup and watched as she lifted it to her lips. There were many things I loved about Amanda, and the show she always made of that first cup of coffee was one of them.
“Okay,” she said, looking up at me through her eyelashes. “What’s on your mind? There’s something, I can tell.”
“I’d like some time alone today, to think. Do you mind?”
“It’s the case, right?”
I nodded.
“Of course not. Why would I?”
“Damn it, Amanda. This is supposed to be our honeymoon.”
“I know that, silly goose, but you need to do this. You’ll figure it out. You always do. When it’s done, though, I want you all to myself. Deal?”
“Deal.”
When we finally made it out to breakfast, I was back where I had been in the shower: my brain was a total wipeout, and I soon became lost in a whirl of thoughts that kept spinning back and forth through my head. Three cups of Dark Italian Roast later, with a fourth in my hands, I headed back to the cottage, leaving the others to enjoy the morning. The cottage had its own private patio with a table, chairs, and a couple of loungers, and that’s where I settled in.
I opened my laptop, set my phone to vibrate, laid my iPad down beside the laptop, and my digital recorder next to that. Then I sucked down what was left of the coffee, lay down on one of the loungers, and stared up at the slowly spinning fan. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, turned my brain loose, and let the movie run. But a movie it surely wasn’t. What it was, was a disjointed jumble of bits and pieces of scenes and conversations that made no sense at all, but hidden somewhere among them, I had a feeling, lay the answers I was looking for.
It must have been a couple of hours later when something nudged my subconscious. I don’t know if I’d dozed off and had been dreaming or what, but I knew it was worth checking out. I sat up and grabbed the recorder from the table, turned it on at the beginning, and let it run. I flipped the lock screen on my iPad and opened my notes, and then followed along as the recorder chirped, comparing my notes to the conversations and interviews. By the time I found it, I’d played the recordings through three times, fast-forwarding, backtracking, playing sections over and over….
By the time I was done, it was after five and I was starving; I was also one happy investigator.
“Well, did you figure it out?” Amanda asked when I found her.
“I think so. I still need something… but I’m not entirely sure what.”
-----
It was almost nine thirty that evening when my iPhone vibrated on the glass tabletop. I was out on the patio, by myself. Amanda was taking a bath and I was alone with my Scottish friend, Mr. Laphroaig. It was Daisy Patel calling.
“Hey, Daisy,” I answered. “What’s up?”
“I pulled in a couple of favors and got the DNA analysis on the blood spot rushed. I just got the results back. You’re not going to be happy. It’s degraded—by the solvents used to clean the carpet, I have no doubt. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that it’s not Gabrielle’s. Other than that… nothing. Sorry.”
“Damn,” I said under my breath. “Anything else?’
“Not much. Other than the shards of broken milk glass there’s some debris, fibers, and hairs from the carpet. And a smudge on the base of the wine glass that wasn’t enough to be of any use. But there was a partial print on the condom wrapper. I’ll send it to you.”
“Hmmm. Okay, thanks, Daisy. The print on the wrapper will belong to Carriere, but we’ll check to make sure. Thanks for the call, and for your extra effort. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem, Harry. Good luck.”
Slowly, I laid the phone back down on the tabletop and stared at it. It seemed to stare back at me, mocking me. Damn, damn, damn. What the hell do I do now?
Then I remembered what Amanda had said to me on the beach. What was it she’d called me? The king of deception and trickery. Oh that’s not true. Not true at all…. Hmmm. Okay, I think I know who did it, but how the hell do I prove it? What exactly do I have? Damn, without that DNA, I have nothing….
For another hour I sat there by myself, nursing one Laphroaig after another. I don’t know whether it was the calming effect of one of Scotland’s finest malt whiskeys, or the fact that it cleared my head—yeah that’s what I said, cleared my head. Whatever. When I finally felt Amanda’s hands on my shoulders, I had the bare bones of a plan. Would it work? Hell, who knew? What I did know was that if it didn’t, the killer was going to get away with it.
Jeez. It has to work. I don’t have anything else.
“Come on, Harry. It’s getting late. Come to bed.”
I don’t know how anyone could resist such a request, especially coming from her, but I did. I wasn’t quite ready yet.
“Not yet. I need to run something by you. Sit down. I’ll order you a drink.”
“Like this?” She walked around in front of me, and when I looked up at her I almost choked on my Laphroaig.
She stood in front of me, feet apart, her hands on her hips, smiling down at me.
; Amanda is five foot nine and stunningly beautiful. She has a pair of legs that seem to go on forever. That night she was wearing three-inch heels and an almost sheer, black floral lace chemise and a matching thong.
Oh. My. God.
“Um, no… go put on a robe or something and then come back, but don’t you dare take that thing off. I want to do that.”
She pouted, swished her hips from side to side. “You sure?”
“Positive. On both counts. Now for God’s sake get outa here before I crack. I need to do this. I’ll order you a glass of wine. I need to talk.”
She was gone for only a couple of minutes, but before she could sit down, I took her hand. “Show me.”
She stood in front of me, cocked one knee up, and opened the resort robe wide. Again, the breath was sucked out of me. Under the robe, the damned outfit seemed even more erotic, if that were possible.
I sat there and stared at her, and I stared at her, and I….
“Oh for Pete’s sake, Harry,” Amanda laughed, “that’s enough.” And she wrapped herself up again, sat down beside me, took my hand, and leaned in and kissed me. And when I say she kissed me, she really went for it.
“Now then,” she said, leaning back in her seat. “That was just a little taste of what’s for dessert.”
“What, no cream? Ow, that hurt.” She’d slapped my wounded arm.
“Oh, Harry. I’m sorry. I keep forgetting. Here, let me kiss it better.” And she did.
The waiter came with the wine just as she let me go.
“Would like me to pour, sir?”
“Yes, please,” I said, laughing up at him. “The wine is just for the lady.”
“Of course,” he said as he handed her the glass.
She took it from him, sipped, nodded, and placed it on the table.
“Will there be anything else?” the waiter asked.
“Not right now, but check back in ten minutes or so, if you don’t mind.”
He nodded and left.
“So,” she said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”