by Bartlett, LL
"Do you think she really believes I'm her son?" I muttered under my breath.
Richard took a quick look over his shoulder. "I doubt it. But apparently you do look a bit like him. He had dark hair and dark eyes. It's only been six months. Hopefully she'll come to terms with it and won't try suicide again."
"Suicide?"
He nodded. "Two months ago. Pills. Fred decided she needed to get away. They came to Vermont on their honeymoon thirty-four years ago. He thought it might be good for her to return."
Again I felt a pang of guilt for my hasty judgment of the woman. "Boy, people really do confide in you."
"I told you, they'll tell doctors things they wouldn't tell their best friends."
"I take it you got no such revelations out of Laura?"
He shook his head, taking a sip of coffee. "She’s a real ice queen."
Beach came in through the garden door and headed for the Andolina's table. He spoke with them for a few moments, and I guessed he was giving them permission to leave, too.
Dipping my hand in my pants pocket, I came up with Maggie’s cell phone. "Guess I'd better go make my call."
I went outside on the patio to call my insurance company and report the accident, telling them where to send the adjuster to look at the remains. I'd have to fill in the paperwork back home, and I made a mental note to remind Beach to give me a copy of the police report.
Richard was saying good-bye to the Canucks as I came back to the dining room. They gave me a wave as they headed up the stairs one last time.
"Lucky bums," Richard muttered.
"Tomorrow, bro."
"It can't come soon enough for me." He got up from the table. "It’s my turn to make calls.
I sat down to nurse another cup of coffee and wait for Richard, wondering how we'd kill time before visiting hours at the hospital. As it turned out, I didn't have to. I was on my third cup when Richard finally reappeared. He sat across from me, his expression grim.
"I couldn't get us home from Burlington without a four-hour layover in Albany, so we're driving to Albany. I had a little trouble with the car rental agency. They didn't want me to take the wagon to New York, but it's all straightened out."
"How much is this going to cost you?"
"Don't ask."
We split up, with Richard heading for Susan's office to tell her of our checkout plans, and me to my room to finish straightening up and pack. I had a feeling there might not be a whole lot of time to do so later.
It amazes me how I don't analyze funny feelings that deal with seemingly insignificant things. If I did, I'd save myself a lot of trouble in the long run.
I came downstairs to collect Richard, rounded the stairwell and saw Patrolman Morris, the first cop to arrive at the murder scene, standing guard outside the door to Susan's and Zack's apartment. His expression said no nonsense tolerated. I nodded a terse hello, turned the corner and knocked on Richard's door. He was ready, shrugging into his jacket.
"It looks like Beach is pushing Zack and Susan."
"Both?" he asked.
"One or the other or both."
He pulled the door shut and followed me outside.
The day was hazy and cool—almost clammy. Rain was in the offing and I was glad I'd thought to grab a jacket.
I followed Richard down the steps to the car and noticed the vacancy sign was out. Susan had wasted no time trolling for new customers. Across the lot, Ted spoke to the lady cop while a crying Laura sat in the back seat of a patrol car.
"Do you think she's been arrested?" Richard asked.
I shook my head. "No handcuffs. My guess is she'll be taken to the station for a little chat like Maggie and me the other night. Let's get out of here. Just thinking about that gives me the creeps."
We made it through the village in record time, thanks to the nearly deserted streets. The mass exodus after the Labor Day holiday was only a pause in the tourist trade. In another couple of weeks when the leaves turned color the entire state would be jammed with sightseers and tour busses.
We arrived at Copley Hospital at precisely eleven o'clock and headed for the elevators. My footsteps slowed as we approached Maggie's room and a dark, queasy feeling came over me. "Uh-oh....”
"What's wrong?" Richard asked.
"I'm not sure." I moved ahead, knocked at the doorjamb and looked in. "Hello?"
Maggie was waiting for us all right, only she was dressed and sitting in the room's only chair, with a pair of crutches propped against the wall beside her and her bag packed. I didn't need to see that her face was shadowed with misgiving; I could feel it radiating from her.
"What's going on?" Richard asked.
"My insurance company says I'm well enough to leave."
If there's one topic in medicine that sets off Richard's seldom-seen anger, it's insurance companies dictating patient care.
"What did your doctor say?"
"He said there was no real reason for me to stay. But no stairs."
"Which means you can't go back to the inn," I put in. "It’s just as well. I don't want you going back there—it's not safe. I don't feel safe there."
"I'll talk to the head nurse," Richard said. "I don't think you're ready to leave. And I'll pay for you to stay, if that's what it takes."
"No, please," Maggie begged. "I want to get out of here. Can't we just go home?"
"We've got plane reservations for tomorrow," Richard said. "Would you mind staying at one of the motels in town?"
"It looks like I don't have much choice."
We called for the nurse, who arrived with a wheelchair, and within minutes we were on the road—complete with flowers, crutches and teddy bear in tow—and on our way back to Stowe. We stopped at the first motel along the strip that sported a vacancy sign. Clean and comfortable, its ground-floor location made for easy accessibility.
Sensing he needed to play doctor, if only to reassure himself Maggie could navigate on her own, I left Richard to help her get settled, while I hit the deli across the street.
Twenty minutes later, Maggie sat propped up on one of the beds, her injured leg resting on a pillow, while I doled out sandwiches and drinks. Richard and I settled on the room's two chairs, looking like mismatched bookends as we squirted packets of horseradish sauce on our beef hoagies.
"What happens next?" Maggie asked, and then took a bite of her sub.
"I didn't know you were getting out of the hospital, or we could have gone home today," Richard said. "Those reservations are for a four o'clock flight out of Albany—tomorrow."
"Then I take it Sgt. Beach says we can go."
"Yeah, but we still don't know who killed Eileen," I said.
"What else can we do?" Richard asked.
"I know a lot more about the players in this little drama, but I'm no closer to knowing who did it. And I'm getting really tired," I admitted.
Maggie took a good, hard look at me. "Jeff, you look terrible. What happened?"
"The Great and Powerful Resnick knows all—except his own limits," Richard said. "We ought to hire him out for parties: 'Have your past read.' It might be funny if it didn't cost him so much."
"Would you mind not talking about me like I'm not in the room. I didn't ask for this to happen to me. I feel like a broken radio that only gets an intermittent signal."
"You seemed to have been adjusting your signal just fine last night."
"Can we talk about something else?"
"Like who killed Eileen?" Maggie suggested. "I'm assuming you made progress at the party."
"Ted. It's obvious it was Ted," Richard said.
"So what's his motive?" I asked. "People usually only kill to save their necks or to gain something—like money. If Eileen had money, she wouldn't have been blackmailing Laura. I might believe Ted killed Eileen for Laura, but how would she get him to do it?"
"How did Eileen find out Laura was even with Ted?" Maggie asked. "And what’s the big deal anyway? It’s not a sin for a younger guy to be with an
older woman."
She had that right. "It depends on the age of the couple.” I filled her in on our little hypnotism experiment the night before.
"Whoa. Screwing with little boys. That’s just plain nasty."
"It depends on the age of the boy. I imagine quite a few thirteen year olds would be thrilled to have sex with an older woman despite what some shrinks and the law say. But at age ten—that’s really pushing it. "
"I didn’t think a boy that young could even—" She hesitated. "Get it up."
Richard cleared his throat, but said nothing.
"Then how about Susan as a suspect?" Maggie suggested. "Adam thought she qualified."
"And she's a good one," I agreed. "He might have had good reason to suspect her and try and protect her." I told Maggie about my revelation at breakfast. She didn't seem surprised.
"She and Laura sure like them young." She shook her head. "I suppose it's understandable if Zack prefers older women over her. Do you think he knows about her and Adam?"
"Maybe he doesn't care. Then again, Eileen thought Zack wanted to buy her out for a two hundred and fifty grand. The inn is worth a lot more than that. If they can get those remaining rooms finished, they'd make out like bandits during a good ski season."
"Yes, and a decent lawyer would negotiate for better than that for her," Richard pointed out.
"I don't think she'd take a deal. I think she likes being an innkeeper," I said.
"Why do you say that?" Richard asked.
"The inside of the Sugar Maple is Susan's domain—and it's immaculate. Out back there must be five or six different gardens that, until recently, look like they've had a lot of care. I'm assuming that was Zack's interest. Didn't you say he had a landscaping business at one time, Maggie?" She nodded. "Everything was kind of shaggy when we arrived. The shrubs by the sign at the edge of the road are in desperate need of trimming. The outside of the inn is where tourists get their first impression of the place."
"You're right. Susan was so proud of that Triple-A shingle. She said they worked hard to get it."
"Sloppy gardening isn't a motive for murder," Richard pointed out.
"No, but it shows Zack's interest in the place has waned. Maybe he had other interests he wanted to pursue."
"You did say he'd do anything to get the money. Perhaps he'd lie about leaving Susan to get it. What if he had some other purpose in mind that even Eileen didn't know about?"
Something about that rang true. "Maybe he just got sick of playing first mate to Captain Susan. I mean, think about it. He had what amounted to a yacht and he sold it for Susan and the Sugar Maple Inn. What if he just wants to sail away and out of Susan’s life? "
Richard shrugged.
Maggie frowned. "I still think Susan’s the killer. She was livid when she told Eileen to leave. I can tell you from experience, it's humiliating to know your husband is catting around—be it with another woman or another man."
"But is that a motive for murder?"
She shrugged. "Maybe not. I still love Gary. A part of me always will."
"Yeah, but you're not a coldhearted bitch like Susan, either."
"Did she even know Eileen and Zack were lovers?" Richard asked.
"I don't know. Maybe she knew and didn't care, especially if young Adam had been servicing her. But when she argued with Eileen, she didn't know we'd come down to the pool and were listening. If Susan was angry enough to kill Eileen, wouldn't she have hit her then?"
"I suppose she could've gone back to kill her later," Richard suggested. "But it doesn't seem likely." He balled the papers from his lunch and tossed them at the wastebasket across the room. Missed.
"Let's get back to Zack," Maggie said. "Maybe Laura wasn't going to come up with the money and Zack and Eileen argued. Murders often happen in the heat of passion."
"And the passion had definitely cooled between them."
"Another reason for murder," Richard said, retrieving the papers and disposing of them. "Do you think it was Zack who burned those pages in the barbecue?"
"I'd lay odds. He showed up after Susan—just as the police arrived on Saturday morning. That would've given him almost ten minutes to go through Eileen's room and remove anything incriminating."
Maggie frowned. "Did they ever determine what the murder weapon was?"
"Technically Eileen drowned, but I don't think they came up with the blunt instrument that knocked her out first. And it wasn't the plastic scotch bottle, either. Even full of liquid, I’m not so sure it was rigid enough to fracture her skull."
"That would depend on the force of the blow, but I tend to agree with you," Richard said, and Maggie handed him her leftovers for the trash.
She adjusted the pillow under her leg. "They've all got motives for killing the poor woman."
"But there has to be one crucial piece of evidence that's missing. And somehow you know about it," Richard said.
"Why do you keep saying that?"
"Why else would someone come after you and Maggie? There's no reason—unless you know something incriminating about the killer."
"Well, I don't have a clue what it could be. And it can't be that important or they—he or she—would've tried again."
"They might—tonight," Richard said.
"Why?"
"Because we let it be known we're leaving tomorrow."
That statement troubled me.
I looked down at what was left of my hoagie and sank back in the chair. As Richard had said, I probably did know something so simple it was invisible to me. But what?
I glanced at my lady across the room. She looked weary. I felt weary. "Are you okay, Maggs?"
She nodded. "I guess."
"You both look like sleep refugees," Richard said.
I glanced at my brother. "You don't look that hot, either."
"Okay—it's unanimous. We're all tired. Tomorrow night we'll be home in our own beds."
I gathered up the mess in front of me and stashed it in the brown paper sack our lunch had come in.
Beds.
Bedroom.
Bedroom closet.
The prescription bottle in Zack's closet.
"Here's something I forgot to mention. When I was nosing around in Zack's and Susan's apartment, I found a prescription bottle hidden in some shoes in the closet."
"What was it for?" Richard asked.
I spelled it for him.
Richard looked up sharply. "Are you sure?"
"I think so. What is it?"
He laughed. "It's generic Viagra."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"As sure as I know my own name."
"Then that must mean that without a little blue pill, Zack’s rather useless in bed."
Richard nodded.
"No wonder Susan went looking for greener pastures," Maggie commented
I sipped the last of my coffee. "Or maybe it was the only way he could do it with Eileen. It might be the only way I’d have been able to do the same."
Maggie giggled. “Okay, if Laura wasn't going to pay Eileen, that left Zack without money for a new boat. Do you think that's enough of a motive for him to kill Eileen?"
"I don't think it was Zack," I said.
"I'll second that," Richard said. "It's Ted. It's got to be Ted."
"But if Susan found out about Zack and Eileen—" Maggie started.
"If she was angry about it, she'd be radiating some pretty strong emotions."
"Ah, but as you pointed out to Sergeant Beach," Richard said, "there's the guilt factor. If she didn't feel bad about killing him, she wouldn't be radiating any kind of guilt or remorse. And you don't pick up on everything everyone feels."
I nodded, conceding defeat. "You’re right. Susan’s a blank slate to me. Then, I guess we're back to square one."
"So what's our next move?" Maggie asked.
"Go home. We can't hang around here forever."
"What time shall we leave tomorrow morning?" Richard asked.
"We should be on the road by ten at the latest."
"No problem for me," he said.
"Me, either," Maggie seconded. "I've been waiting to go home almost since we got here."
The quiet lengthened.
Maggie broke the silence. "What's in that envelope?" she asked, pointing to her stuff piled on the dresser.
"Beach handed it to me last night," Richard said.
I grabbed it, tore open the flap, and withdrew the contents: a copy of the accident report on my car, along with a bunch of eight and a half by eleven inch sheets of inkjet images of what I’d taken of the inn, as well as the memory card. "Not bad."
Richard looked over my shoulder and Maggie craned her neck. "I told you they'd come out good. I can't wait to see the rest of them," she said.
"We can look at them tomorrow night on the computer. How's the article coming?"
"Pretty good. I can probably finish it by the weekend and we can email the whole thing off next Monday."
"Your first sale," Richard said to me.
I crossed my fingers. "I hope."
Maggie tried to stifle a yawn.
"I think someone needs her rest," Richard said.
"Why am I so tired?" she asked.
"Blood loss, trauma. Need I say more?"
"I suppose you guys are going to take off?" she said, sounding grumpy
"Just to give you some peace and quiet."
"I guess you're right. But I feel like I'm missing out on all the fun."
"Believe me, there's been a serious lack of so far on this trip," Richard said. That, at least, made Maggie smile.
Richard grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.
"Give me a minute, will you, bro?"
He smiled. "Sure. See you later, Maggie." He closed the door behind him.
"Are you coming back tonight?" she asked.
"I don't know, Maggs. I'd like to find out who killed Eileen before we leave. If I can, I'll be back to spend the night with you."
"Jeff, let the police handle it. It's what they get paid for."
I put the envelope on the bedside table. "I know."
"And don't take any stupid chances."