The Harry Starke Series: Books 7-9 (The Harry Starke Series Boxed Set Book 3)

by Blair Howard

  “I have a plan I’d like to run by you….”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you ran it by Kate?”

  “It probably would, but she doesn’t look like you…. No! Not again.” I reared away from her as she raised her hand.

  “Big baby. I was just reaching for my drink.” And she was.

  For the next twenty minutes or so, we tossed my idea back and forth, back and forth. I refined it, teased it, tweaked it, until I was sure I could pull it off, and then I could stand it no longer. I stood up, took her hand, and led her like a sulky little brat back into the cottage, and then the bedroom, and finished the evening with… well. Use your imagination.

  Chapter 28

  Monday November 20, 9am

  That next morning I called Tommy Quinn and asked him to come on over from St. Thomas. He said that he would, but also that it would be a while before he could get there because he had to come by boat; the helicopter was being serviced.

  In the meantime, I met Kate and Bob for breakfast and outlined my plan.

  “Oh my God,” Kate said. “You’re going to do the Inspector Clouseau thing, gather them all together and do the big reveal?”

  Bob grinned. “That should be a laugh.”

  “Well, I need to flush the killer out,” I said. “I know who it is, or at least I think I do, but I can’t prove it.”

  “What happens if he doesn’t freak?” Kate asked.

  “Nothing. I’m screwed, and he walks. But I don’t think that will happen.”

  “So who is it?” Bob asked.

  Now it was my turn to grin. “If I tell you, it’ll spoil my Clouseau act. You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Damn, Harry. You’ve been watching too many old movies.”

  Next I called Leo Martan and told him that we would like to meet with everyone in the living room. We set the appointment for noon.

  Once Tommy arrived, we drove up to the Mount together, and with a couple of exceptions, which didn’t matter, they were all there waiting for us, and they weren’t happy. Leo Jr. was angry as hell. He claimed he’d had to miss an important appointment to be there. Evan looked like he might be on something, and probably was. Georgina, his girlfriend, was drumming her fingers on the table. The Collinses were seated together, holding hands. Jeffery Margolis was standing by the fireplace; his face as white as a sheet. Moore stood stoically beside the door, his hands clasped behind his back, looking for all the world like someone who was ready to make a run for it should the need arise. Vivien, Sebastian, and the gardener were not present. No one looked at ease.

  I made a point of shaking everyone’s hand and thanking them for their time and patience and for attending. Telling them thank you was an attempt to mollify them; shaking their hands was not.

  Until then, I’d had a good idea who the killer was, but wasn’t absolutely sure; by the time the round of handshakes was done, I was.

  I stood with my back to the window, laid my iPad on the table in front of me, and looked around the room.

  And then I began.

  “I’m not going to waste a lot of time handing out a bunch of theories—who did what to whom and when. I’m not Colombo, but I do know that one of you killed both Gabrielle and Alicia. You all had motives. Several of you had very strong motives, money being the most obvious. Most of you had opportunity. All of you had the means.”

  I looked at them. There was not a sound to be heard. No one did so much as blink.

  “You know who you are,” I said. “And so do I. I know because by killing Alicia you made a huge mistake.” I paused. There was no reaction.

  “Like most people who think they’re smart enough to get away with murder, you went a step too far; you tried to divert attention away from yourself by killing a suspect and then trying to make it look like she committed suicide. The idea being of course that she killed herself because she either thought she was about to be exposed, or because she couldn’t live with herself after killing Gabrielle.

  “In this case, however, the ploy had the opposite effect. In fact it was overkill. First, it removed Alicia from the list of suspects, and second… it actually drew attention to you, the real killer.”

  I was watching Leo Jr. intently as I said it, and I enjoyed watched him squirm, and I smiled to myself.

  “Something had been bothering me for days,” I continued. “I knew I was missing something, something about Gabrielle’s murder, but it wasn’t until I went back over the recorded interviews that I finally figured it out, and when I did, I knew who the murderer was.”

  Well, I thought I did.

  “The problem was that I couldn’t prove it. I had no physical evidence. And then the killer helped me out by killing Alicia.” I paused as I looked at each of them in turn, then turned my attention back to Leo Jr., and continued.

  “You see, it’s a well-known tenet in law enforcement that every perpetrator of a crime either leaves something at the scene, or takes something away. This case is no different. The killer, in both cases, left something behind.

  “In Gabrielle’s case, it was a single spot of blood. We found it in the carpet in Gabrielle’s room. The angle of the cut on her head indicated a right-handed blow. The blow itself was not hard enough to kill her, but it was hard enough to break the weapon. We know that weapon was a bottle made of milk glass. We know because we found several shards in the pile of the carpet. That being so, we figured it was highly likely the blood spot came from a cut on the killer’s right hand…. True, it could have been Gabrielle’s, fallen from the cut on her forehead, but most likely it was the killer’s. We didn’t know for sure until we got the results of the DNA tests back. Those came in last night. The blood did indeed belong to her killer.” And that’s no lie, I thought. It didn’t belong to Gabrielle, so….

  “In Alicia’s case it was a partial fingerprint that the killer left on the base of a glass in the room.” Not exactly a lie, but it was just a smudge, and useless.

  “She, Alicia, was drugged, by the way. Ketamine….”

  As I said that last bit I switched my attention from Leo and looked straight at Lucy Martan, and I watched as the color drained from her face.

  “That’s a nasty cut you have in the web of your right hand, Lucy,” I said quietly, watching her eyes.

  She covered her right hand with her left, staring at me through eyes that had narrowed into slits of hate. Her lips were clamped shut in a tight, thin line.

  “Horses,” I said. “They’re your forte, right? And ketamine is a horse tranquilizer, often used as a date-rape drug. Hmmm. But there’s more, isn’t there, Lucy? Would you like to tell me how you knew Gabrielle had been hit with a bottle before any of us did?”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t know that….”

  “Yes you did. Listen to this. It’s part of your interview on Sunday morning.” I withdrew the recorder from my pants pocket and flipped the switch.

  “So she was screwing Jeff for sure, and maybe Moore, the butler, and probably Jackson and Michael too? So someone lost their temper and hit her over the head with a bottle? Does that surprise you, for God’s sake?”

  For a moment she just sat there, staring at the recorder in my hand. And then, without warning, she exploded. She uttered an ear-piercing scream, leaped to her feet, and threw herself at me across the table, her hands curled into talons, her nails into claws.

  I shouldn’t have been, but I was taken completely by surprise. Only by reflex and instinct was I able to avoid the fingers aimed at my eyes. I managed to knock those aside, but the talons became fists and she began to pummel me for all she was worth. The edge of her fist came down with all the force she could muster on my injured arm, right on the wound. White-hot pain speared up my arm all the way to the back of my eyes. I swear I almost blacked out.

  Fortunately, help was at hand in the form of Victor Moore. He leapt over the table, grabbed her around the waist, and lugged her out through the French doors onto the patio, kicking and scre
aming.

  As the throbbing pain in my arm slowly began to subside, I sat down and watched as Tommy Quinn cuffed her: not an easy job. The woman was strong, and she’d totally lost it. She fought, she screamed, she scratched, she bit, but finally he and Moore got her under control, and she sat under an umbrella, hands behind her back, head down, sobbing.

  “Why?” Leo Martan Sr. asked as he walked us back to the car. “Why did she do it?”

  “Money,” I replied. “It’s almost always about money. Your son’s broke. He wouldn’t ask you for help, so she decided to help herself. She knew about Gabrielle’s inheritance and the dispersal clause should anything happen to Gabrielle. She knew the money would come to her husband, so she killed her. Alicia was, as I said, her big mistake. She thought she could divert attention away from herself. The funny thing is, at that time she, Lucy, wasn’t even a suspect; Alicia was. Like you, I figured it was either Alicia or your wife—your secret is safe with me, by the way,” I said, grinning at him.

  He gave me a wry smile in return. “What will happen to her?” he asked.

  Oh boy. This was the part I hadn’t been looking forward to. I looked at him, shook my head, looked down.

  “I’m not sure. Oh, she did it all right; she lost it back there—but she admitted nothing.” I shook my head. “I hate to say it, but without a confession, she’ll probably walk.”

  “She won’t be convicted?” He was incredulous.

  “If she gets herself a good lawyer, I very much doubt it. Look, you asked me to find out who killed your daughter, and I did. We know she did it, but what little proof we have is circumstantial. The only real piece of evidence we have is that recording, and even that’s dubious. What she said about the bottle, that’s circumstantial too. A good lawyer will suggest that her choice of words, “the bottle”—we never found it, by the way—was purely coincidental, and that she could just as easily have said hammer, candlestick, or whatever. Oh, Tommy Quinn knows she did it. We all do, and he’ll grill her, try to get a confession. But if I know my perps, when she calms down, she’ll get wise. If she does, it’s not going to happen. She’ll lawyer up, and that’ll be the end of it.” I shrugged and shook my head.

  “If he does manage to get a confession, she’ll go to jail. If not…. Well, she’ll probably walk out of there within forty-eight hours and come on home.”

  “But what about the DNA, the fingerprint on the glass?”

  I smiled at him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him. “We’ll see,” I said. “We’ll see.”

  We reached the car and I turned to shake his hand. It was then that I saw Victor Moore standing at the top of the steps, watching us. He looked at me, narrowed his eyes, and nodded, slowly. I got the message. He knew what I knew… and then I remembered his promise.

  Chapter 29

  Monday November 20, 2:50pm

  It was almost three o’clock when Kate, Bob, and I returned to the resort. I spent the afternoon with Amanda; she iced my throbbing arm. I took more ibuprofen, and we sat together by the pool.

  “So you think she’ll get away with it, then?”

  “Yup. That’s the problem when you have to fall back on deception to get the job done.”

  “Deception?”

  “Yeah, your idea, right?”

  She stared at me.

  “Don’t worry. It was a good one. If I hadn’t resorted to fudging the truth a little, old man Martan would still be wondering who killed his kid and stepdaughter.”

  “Okay, that’s enough. So what are we going to do with the rest of our honeymoon? We only have four days left.”

  I smiled slyly at her. “What do you think?”

  “Apart from that, dumbass.”

  “Oh, dumbass is it? I get it. Now you’ve gotten your hooks into me I get to see the real you, is that it?”

  “No. I love you, Harry.”

  “And I love you too, and I have a surprise for you, but I’ll tell you about it later. Now let’s go swimming in the ocean, but this time….”

  “Oh don’t worry,” she said, smiling. “I’ll look after you.”

  -----

  It was almost ten o’clock that evening when I made my big announcement. Dinner was finished, but everyone was still there, and it seemed as good a time as any.

  I stood up and tapped my glass with a dessert spoon to get their attention. “Dad. Everyone,” I said. “Since we’re all here together, I just wanted to let you guys know something.” I squeezed Amanda’s hand. “You too, sweetheart.” She looked up at me, her eyes wide.

  “When this is vacation is over, Amanda and I won’t be going back with you.” There was a collective gasp, including one from Amanda, and she squeezed my hand hard.

  “It’s not what you think. We’re just going to stay here for a while, through Christmas and the new year. I need a break in the worst way, and….” I looked down at Amanda. “And I need to spend some time with Amanda as far away from the real world as we can get. I need to give my arm a chance to heal properly. I need to grieve for Henry, and I need to rest, boy do I ever need to rest. I had a chat with Captain Walker and I’ve chartered the Lady May until January 6. We’ll fly back on the seventh. We’ll leave on an extended cruise when you fly home. We’ll sail the islands and then hit the new year with a new outlook on life, and maybe something a little more.” I squeezed her hand and glanced at her; her eyes were glistening.

  “Good for you, son,” August said. “It’s about damned time.”

  “What about the agency?” Jacque asked.

  “It’s yours and Bob’s until I get back. You can handle things between you. You’ve both been around me long enough to know what I would do in any given situation. If you don’t, I don’t care. You’ll just have to manage somehow. Oh, and Kate. I’m going to ask you one more time…. Come and work for me. You and Bob get along great. You’d make a fine team and… well, you might as well know, all of you. I am coming back to run the business, but not like before. I’m going to hand off some of the responsibilities, to you Jacque, Bob, and you, Kate, if you’ll accept my offer.”

  But Kate was shaking her head. “I can’t do it, Harry. I’m a cop. Always will be. Besides, what would you do without me on the inside?”

  “Damn it,” Bob growled.

  “Oh well,” I said. “It was worth a shot.”

  “And—” she was laughing now “—there’s no way I could spend my working days in the company of that big lug. The nights are more than enough for me.”

  I couldn’t help it. I put back my head and laughed.

  “Is that so?” Bob asked, as he grabbed her and laid a kiss on her that Tom Cruise would have been proud of.

  They do make a damn fine couple, don’t they?

  And then everyone was laughing and talking and leaning over their chairs like children; the volume of conversation in the room shot up. August got up out of his seat and came around the table. I turned to meet him. He wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “I love you, son.”

  I knew he did, but I think that might have been the first time he’d ever come right out and said it.

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  I was still holding Amanda’s hand, and I could feel her trembling. She was crying when I looked down at her. Tears ran freely down her cheeks. I sat down again and pulled her to me.

  “It’s okay, my love,” I said. “We’ll have a wonderful time.”

  “I know we will,” she whispered. I could hear in her voice that she was smiling. “I know we will.”

  Book 9

  Without

  Remorse

  A Harry Starke Novel

  By

  Blair Howard

  Chapter 1

  Friday, May 3, 2002

  It had been unseasonably warm in that part of Tennessee for weeks, and Friday was no exception. Peter Nicholson was sweating as he pushed his way through the dense undergrowth, out onto the narrow woodland path in the heart of Prentice Cooper State Forest. It was late
afternoon, just after four; it had been a long day and he was tired. He’d bagged his limit: just one bird. He never had been able to figure that one out. Wild turkeys were more than plentiful in Prentice Cooper.

  He propped his gun against the stump of an old ironwood tree, held the bird up by its feet, shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and inspected his prize. It was a fully adult hen, fat and healthy.

  Not bad, he thought. Maybe eight and a half… nine pounds. Great shot. He smiled as he looked at the headless carcass. Clean as a whistle. Took it off like a bloody guillotine. He held the bird higher, as high as he could, and watched as the last drops of blood oozed from the severed neck and dripped down onto the carpet of leaves underfoot.

  Reverently, he placed it down on top of the stump, walked a few yards back into the trees, unzipped, and relieved himself. He was just zipping back up when he heard someone approaching from the west. He frowned. Who the hell can that be? Bloody dangerous wandering around in the forest during turkey season. Silly son of a…. “What the hell? Hey… hey don’t point that thing at me. That’s how people get killed.”

  “Hmmm. Yes. That’s true. Hi, Peter.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you, of course. Where are the others?”

  “Still out there somewhere. They’ll be along in a minute.”

  “Hey, lucky you. You got one. Clean shot, too. Nice one.”

  “Lucky? Nah,” he said, backing away slightly. “Technique. It’s all about technique. Good woodcraft and technique. And, what are you doing? I asked you to point that thing somewhere else.”

  “You really are one smug son of a bitch, aren’t you, Peter? Get down on your knees and beg, you bastard.”

  Peter Nicholson looked at the shotgun, now pointed at his chest. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about killing you, Peter. Now do as I say.” The muzzle of the gun twitched, the way it did when someone put their finger on the trigger.