by Edie Claire
Gil looked over at Leigh expectantly.
She shrank in her chair.
This is awkward.
"Um..." she began, trying to remember exactly what she had promised to do. "It's just that Cara thought you should hear a second opinion about... well, about how women think."
Cara nodded at her encouragingly. Gil's expression turned stormy.
Leigh swallowed. "Look, I don't want to get into this any more than you do, but the fact is, Gil—"
The man looked like his face would explode.
Leigh plowed on. "Women don't take rejection well. The more aggressive the woman, the harder she takes it. The more intelligent the woman, the more personally she takes it. The more attractive the woman, the worse she's insulted by it. All of which makes someone like Diana Saxton a triple threat."
She took a breath. Gil hadn't exploded yet, and Cara looked pleased. "I don't know the woman, and I don't know how much trouble she's willing to go to to make you suffer, but trust me," she leaned forward for emphasis. "You did not part on good terms, no matter what she told you. She's clearly a liar and an actress, because there's no doubt she still resents the hell out of you. Thinking anything less, giving her the benefit of the doubt in any way, is opening up yourself, and your family, to one whopping sucker punch."
Leigh dropped back against the couch cushions, her duty discharged. Cara looked hopefully at Gil. Gil continued to glower, but when he spoke, his voice was mellow. "I hear what you're saying, Leigh."
The front doorbell rang.
The pall of tension already blanketing the room grew heavier. Gil rose and walked to the door. A few moments later he returned with two men whom he introduced as Reginald Bloom, his lawyer, and Detective Andrew Peterson. Leigh shook both men's hands, thinking that if they hadn't been introduced, she would have reversed them. Gil's "Reg" was sixty if he was a day—a grizzled, pot bellied man with frizzy mad-scientist hair and a mischievous glint in his eye. Maura's detective friend was barely thirty, a slight, serious fellow with narrow spectacles and an intellectual air.
Neither man wasted time.
"As you know, we made an exhaustive search of Brandon Lyle's home and office yesterday," Peterson began as soon as they were seated. The detective was unexpectedly soft-voiced, and Leigh was embarrassed to catch herself leaning forward to hear. She was lucky no one had thought to kick her out yet.
"I don't recall your mentioning that Mr. Lyle had asked you for a loan?" the detective inquired of Gil.
"You didn't ask," the lawyer interjected quickly. "But my client is happy to answer now that you have." He gave Gil a nod.
Gil sat forward. "Brandon did ask for a personal loan, maybe three weeks ago. We had broken off our official business arrangement nearly a year ago, as I told you. I declined the loan because I considered the man a very poor risk, but I did offer him some informal, unpaid business advice at that time, as I explained already."
"Yes, you did," the detective agreed. A painfully long period of time elapsed. Leigh could hear Cara's grandfather clock ticking in the upstairs hallway. "In examining Mr. Lyle's papers, we've found indications that he considered you among his potential 'fallback' assets should his current real estate venture collapse. Specifically, he listed your name next to an anticipated sum in the neighborhood of seven figures."
Cara's face paled further. Gil's flushed red as a fire engine.
"Seven figures!" he exclaimed, rising from his chair. "That's insane! He only asked me for six figures, and I wouldn't give him that!"
"The victim's delusions regarding his own appeal as a credit risk are hardly my client's concern," the lawyer purred smoothly, stroking his mustache with a bejeweled finger. "Is there anything else?"
The detective remained unruffled. "Yes. The whole question of Mr. March's history with Mr. Lyle's firm, as well as their personal relationship, appeared to be of considerable interest to Mr. Lyle immediately before his murder."
"How do you figure?" the lawyer asked.
"We found a file—several files, actually—of printed materials, correspondence, even some university-related documents going back several decades, placed quite prominently among Mr. Lyle's things, as if he had reviewed them recently. This, in conjunction with the stated threat Mr. Lyle made in the hearing of multiple witnesses on the night of the murder—"
"We explained that already, I believe," the lawyer interrupted.
The detective paused. "You offered an explanation, yes. I was wondering if you could offer some additional explanation for why Mr. Lyle might have been under the impression that a large sum of money might be coming to him from Mr. March."
Gil sputtered and started to speak, but the lawyer stopped him with a hand. "My client can hardly be expected to account for whatever vagaries were going on in Mr. Lyle's mind in the midst of impending financial ruin," he said placidly. "Mr. Lyle asked for a loan and was refused. He made a threat which we have previously established to be empty, as my client has no culpability with which Mr. Lyle could hope to extort seven cents, much less seven figures. Is there anything else?"
The detective studied Gil for another long moment. Then he returned his notebook to his pocket. "No, that will be all for now. Thank you." He rose to leave, and Gil showed him back out without another word.
"Interesting," the lawyer said when Gil returned. "What could Lyle hope to accomplish by looking through files with your name on them?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," Gil said with frustration. "Even if he was stupid enough to believe he could blackmail me over that wretched Philadelphia business, he wasn't going to find anything incriminating in a business file." His brow furrowed. "It doesn't even sound like Brandon. I can't see him keeping hard copies of our 'correspondence' in the first place—he kept terrible records. That was part of his problem. If such files exist, it would only be because—" his voice broke off abruptly.
Cara stood up. "Because Diana Saxton printed them out!" she finished fiercely. "Which she would, if she was trying to frame you! Who knows how much Brandon told her? About the loan request, about the blackmail? She could have known the whole story! And she could have easily pulled your files to the front and laid them out for the detectives to find. She could have created them all herself in the first place!"
Reg looked from Cara to Gil. "That possible?" he asked.
The couple exchanged a hard stare. Gil exhaled. "Yes," he conceded. "It's possible. She's certainly tech savvy enough. I wouldn't have thought Diana would exert that much effort in my honor, but if the woman wanted to screw me over..."
The lawyer made a clucking sound with his tongue. "Well then, old chap, we're damned fortunate we brought to light the spurned secretary issue yesterday. They can't very well ignore the possibility of sabotage, far-fetched as it may seem." He rose suddenly and gave Gil a hearty clap on the back. "Don't lose sleep over it. The motive they're chasing is sketchy, at best. The fact that you refused a loan request previously is helpful—it shows you weren't afraid of him. In any event, there's not a scrap of physical evidence to tie you to the murder scene."
The doorbell rang. Everyone looked at each other blankly for a second, then Gil walked toward the door. He returned a few seconds later with the detective in tow. "Terribly sorry to bother you again," the slight man said softly, making no move to sit. "But I just received a rather intriguing call. Perhaps you heard that the Ironworks Health Club on Perry Highway was closed early this morning due to an anonymous bomb threat?"
Leigh shot a glance at Cara. Her cousin stood ash-faced; her hands began to tremble.
"Yes," Gil answered. "That's where I go. I was pulling out of the parking lot when you called this morning. What of it?"
The detective cleared his throat. "It seems that in the course of searching the building, the bomb squad came across a bag with your ID tag on it, which was left underneath a bench in the weight room."
Cara's quick intake of breath was slight, but Leigh heard it. She only hoped the detective had no
t.
"The bag contained an item that drew their immediate attention," Peterson continued. "A handgun registered to Mr. Brandon Lyle."
Chapter 16
Maura grimaced as she picked up a stick from the ground and attempted to scrape several inches of mud off the bottom of her left shoe. The women were meeting once again at the picnic table behind the church, where the detective had summoned Leigh after finishing the unenviable duty of overseeing a pond-dragging on the heels of a rainstorm.
"So, I hear the bomb squad stole my prize," the detective said dryly. "And they weren't even looking."
Leigh sighed. She felt terribly guilty leaving the Pack with Cara. She could have watched them easily; the project Gil had scrounged up was five afternoons' worth, tops, and she could work with the kids at home if they were occupied. But under the circumstances, it was Cara who needed watching by the Pack.
"What's going to happen now, Maura?" she asked, restraining Chewie by his lead as he lunged toward a nearby squirrel. "Is there enough for an arrest?"
The detective blew out a breath. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Koslow. The ballistics aren't back yet. If Brandon's handgun was the murder weapon, well... all I can tell you is that Peterson is nobody's fool. If he were," she added with a scowl, slinging a long rope of mud off the stick and into the bushes, "he would have volunteered for this crap job himself instead of conning me into it."
She finished scraping one shoe and moved to the other. Leigh could barely tell a difference.
"If Cara is so sure that Diana is responsible," Maura began thoughtfully, "how does she figure the woman got hold of Gil's gym bag?"
"His car has keyless entry," Leigh answered. "Diana must have memorized the code when she was working for him. She certainly knew all his habits. She even joined the same gym so she could 'run into him' in a sports bra and spandex."
Maura whistled under her breath. "Sounds like one scary chick." She took off her right shoe altogether, then heaved it against the table leg with enough force to crush a melon.
Leigh restrained a grin. "Yeah. Some women are like that."
The detective replaced the now notably cleaner shoe on her foot. "Peterson will keep an eye on Diana Saxton," she assured. "And the flaky widow besides. Which reminds me, what's this vaunted intel of yours? Spill it. I'm overdue at the station already."
Leigh described her encounter with Courtney Lyle, highlighting the enigmatic "somebody here" comment. With Diana almost certainly having planted Brandon's gun, Courtney's foibles didn't seem as important anymore. Still, adding any names to the list of non-Gil suspects could only help his case.
Maura's eyebrows rose. "Interesting," she remarked. "You say Courtney seemed afraid of something? Or someone?"
Leigh nodded. "Gil said she was living with another man in Chicago. I was thinking... a little jealous rivalry, perhaps?"
Maura smiled. "You know what, Koslow? Sometimes your instincts aren't all bad."
Leigh smiled back. "Can I have that in writing, please?"
Maura's grin widened. "Hell, no."
***
Leigh did not find Maura's mud problems nearly so amusing an hour later, when she found herself trudging along in soggy muck on the opposite side of the pond with her Aunt Bess, Chewie, and an awkward armful of camera equipment.
"Couldn't we wait until the sun dries things out a bit?" she suggested, dropping her aunt's tripod for the second time as the corgi lurched backward, jerking her elbow with him. She looked around the now empty woods, unclipped the dog from his lead, and picked up the tripod again. "Stay close, Chewie," she ordered.
"Oh, don't be such a priss," Bess chastised good-naturedly. "I want to get everything set up and concealed before any more curiosity seekers make it out here. It was quite a show this morning."
Leigh's eyebrows arched. "You mean there were spectators? For a pond dragging?"
Bess frowned. "Well, not so many. But then, not everyone is as devoted to the cause of law enforcement as I am. It was a long and messy process, but ever so interesting."
"You stood out here and watched the whole time?" Leigh inquired.
"Of course not, silly. I brought a lawn chair."
Leigh let that one pass. "What did they find?"
"Oh, all sorts of things," Bess answered cheerfully. "Hordes of glass bottles, as I expected. I pulled a few that might be worth something... if so, I'll give them to Clem. He has a collection, you know. Flashlights, some aluminum cans, some canvas that looked like it might have been a tent, deflated innertubes, a camp lantern, some mangled pieces of metal farm equipment, a drink cooler, three tires, and my personal favorite... a bed pan. It was all very enlightening. I felt like an archeologist!"
Leigh tried to imagine Clem's house containing a curio cabinet of carefully tended antique bottles, but all she could picture was a dusty shelf heaped with broken glass and empty chaw tins. Perhaps she was being presumptuous. Had she not expected Anna's house to contain a canary cage, cutesy china figurines, framed pictures of grandchildren, and perhaps a velvet Elvis? For all she knew, Clem's living room was filled with sophisticated computer equipment and he and Anna had been carrying on a wild affair since the Cold War.
"That reminds me," Leigh asked. "Are Anna and Clem buds? I mean, they're about the same age, and they've both lived out here forever, right?"
"I don't know if 'buds' is the right word," Bess answered, her voice chipper despite the effort of walking in mud that sucked down their boots with every step. "Their fathers were friends; Anna's father sold Clem's father his plot way back when theirs were the only two houses around. Clem and Anna not only grew up together, they were all each other had in the way of playmates. So you could say they're like brother and sister."
"Oh," Leigh said with disappointment. "I guess there goes my 'wild affair' theory."
Bess chuckled. "Well, they do bicker like an old married couple, but that's as far as it goes, I'm afraid. Lord knows they'd both be happier if they were getting a little action somewhere."
Leigh allowed herself a grin. Her forthright aunt had been married three times: once to her high school sweetheart, who had died in Korea; once to a lovely, educated man who had died too young; and once on the rebound to a bohemian drifter who was too young, period. Bess had divorced the third one promptly and vowed never to marry again—but she was still the biggest flirt in three counties.
"Have either of them ever been married?" Leigh asked.
"Anna was once," Bess replied. "Total disaster. Worthless scum cleaned out their joint account and skipped the country. Sent her a postcard a couple weeks later—from Rio de Janiero, no less—saying he'd met someone else and didn't want to be married anymore. To top it off, the card was one of those—"
Bess stopped short as her right foot dropped into an unexpectedly deep hole. She tottered dangerously, camera in tow. Leigh slogged over to lend a hand, but with some impressive one-armed windmilling, Bess miraculously managed to right herself.
"Good save," Leigh praised with relief. The last thing her drama-loving aunt needed was another broken ankle, seeing as how the last one had nearly gotten her sucker of a niece killed.
"As I was saying," Bess continued, unaffected, "as if dumping Anna weren't enough, the bastard picked one of those cheesy, practically pornographic postcards of a busty sunbather in a string bikini that said: Wish you were here."
Leigh winced. "Ouch. And she never married again?"
Bess shook her head. "She couldn't find the SOB to divorce him, so her legal affairs were a mess for a long time. But even after she was free, she wanted nothing more to do with men." Bess paused for a moment to readjust her load, letting out a dramatic sigh as she did so. "Sad, isn't it? And Clem's no better. That old geezer hasn't gotten any since Eisenhower was President. The man's healthy as a horse, but I can't tell you the last time I saw a woman anywhere near that cabin of his!"
Leigh's eyebrows rose. "This surprises you?"
Bess smirked. "Well, if he'd mixed it
up a little more often over the years, he might not be such an old geezer now, would he?"
Leigh considered a moment. "Good point."
At long last, Bess reached her desired position near the edge of the pond and set the camera down on a fallen tree limb. "We'll set up the tripod here," she announced, pointing to a cluster of brush, "and then cover it with branches and such. If we're careful about it, it will be almost impossible to see the camera from the far bank of the pond—and that's where our guilty party will be headed."
Leigh swallowed. She had no desire to look at the spot in question, but Chewie, of course, was already making a beeline for the place where the body had lain. "Chewie," she chastised. "Get away from there! Go dig someplace else."
The dog's ears perked. He glanced quizzically at her for a moment, then bounded off to sniff around the water's edge. Not only were his previously white paws now brown up to his oxters, but his whole underbelly (none of which was particularly far removed from the ground) was dripping with mud. Leigh sighed, hoping Bess would have a hose handy when they returned to the house. She spared a glance around the rest of the pond and was dismayed to see the havoc that the dragging equipment had caused. The water was still as opaque as a cup of hot chocolate, and the bank on which the tractor had driven was gouged with deep, crisscrossing tire ruts.
"Don't worry," Bess said dismissively, following her gaze. "It'll heal. Besides, maybe the mess will keep people from walking across to this side of the pond and out of our viewing range." She fiddled with the tripod, placed the camera securely upon it, and then began to gather up nearby branches. "Feel free to help anytime," she suggested dryly.
Leigh started. She had been absorbed by more unpleasant memories. "Sorry," she apologized. She looked around. "Do you want me to find more of the—"
The crack of a gunshot split the air. Leigh jumped out of her boots... literally. Her too-big borrowed galoshes were stuck fast in the mud, and when she came back down to earth, heart pounding, it was with one sock-clad foot resting on a collapsed boot and the other sunk in muck up to her ankle.