by Mary Kennedy
“I’m up for it,” I told him. “At least I think I am. Ali wasn’t, though. She wanted to come with me, but she was absolutely shattered by the news.”
“I figured that. She sounded so upset on the phone. I hated to call during the Dream Club meeting, but I knew you’d want to hear the news right away.”
“Yes, I did.” Noah twined his fingers around mine and I felt a little zing in my heart. “We wrapped up the meeting early. Everyone was thrown for a loop by your call.”
I didn’t admit I’d told the Dream Club that I suspected Lucy of Abigail’s murder. And now Lucy was dead. Where did that leave the investigation? Had Lucy planned on blowing the whistle on someone? Did someone kill Lucy to silence her? Or was it just a tragic accident? First Desiree, then Abigail, and now Lucy. Three deaths, all unexpected. Was there a curse hanging over Beaux Reves?
As we walked up the oyster shell pathway, side by side, I tried to shake off the dark images roiling in my head. Noah seemed lost in his thoughts, and I figured he was developing his own theories about the murders.
I glanced at him. He was scanning the outside of the mansion; the portico, the winding drive, the edge of the patio peeking out to the left of the entrance. I always tell him he has “cop eyes”; they don’t miss a trick.
It was hard to believe I’d had lunch on that patio just a few days ago with the mistress of Beaux Reves. My mind went back to that idyllic luncheon under the magnolia trees. We’d drunk wine, and Abigail had been so relieved to learn that her “death dream” might not be threatening at all. She’d laughed it off and made sure we all ate dessert. And now two deaths in a row. Abigail’s premonition had come true after all. Death was clinging to the beautiful mansion like a shroud.
I wondered where Noah’s thoughts were leading him and took another quick peek at his profile, his strong chin and finely chiseled features. He must have felt my gaze on him, because he turned and gave me a long, slow, intimate look.
He was wearing a navy blue Lacoste shirt with khakis, and in spite of the fact that we were on the way to a murder scene, he looked relaxed. “I didn’t want to say too much to Ali,” he said, “because I was afraid she might blurt out some of the details.”
“Probably a wise move. She was pretty shaken up. All she said was the Lucy had drowned in the bathtub and that Sam wasn’t sure it was an accident.”
Noah gave a wry laugh. “Wasn’t sure? That’s an understatement. Sam is looking at this like a murder, but it’s odd.” He paused. “And it wasn’t death by drowning. It looks like Lucy was electrocuted.”
I stopped dead in my tracks to face him as two CSIs emerged from the house with their kits and brushed past us. I spotted the ME’s van starting to pull away from the side portico and I realized they’d already removed Lucy’s body from the mansion. I tried not to shudder and forced myself to concentrate on the task at hand.
“How could she have been electrocuted?” I kept my voice low because a couple of uniforms were making their way back to their squad cars. I spotted Sam inside the mansion giving directions to one of the techs. She looked tired and frazzled but competent as always. Sam manages to control her emotions no matter what life throws at her. She’s an excellent detective, and I have no doubt that she’ll be a captain at the Savannah PD someday.
Sophie and Angus were walking down the path away from the house. Sam had nodded to the uniforms at the door to let them leave and I assumed they’d already been interviewed. Interesting that they both were at the mansion today. I wondered what they’d seen and heard. And more important, what they’d told Sam Stiles.
As the two passed us on the narrow walkway, I heard Sophie say to Angus, “Two deaths so close together? That’ll be A-1 tomorrow for sure.” She spotted me, gave me a cool nod, and continued down the path. A-1? Funny, Sara uses that expression all the time, and I never figured out exactly what it means. I made a mental note to ask her about it.
“What exactly happened here?” I was steeling myself for what I might see inside Beaux Reves. The more information I had, the better.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Noah said quietly as we stepped into the foyer. “But wait till you see the crime scene. Lucy was taking a bath and apparently her boom box fell into the bathtub. On the surface, it looks like a freak accident. Why in the world she had a boom box in the bathroom is beyond me.”
“Her boom box?” I suddenly remembered her dragging the clunky object with her as she worked. Her slacker son had neglected to buy a charger for her iPod, so she kept moving it from room to room, plugging it in each time. Music probably made the work go faster.
“Oh no,” I said softly. “Suddenly it all makes sense.” I quickly told Noah about the boom box Lucy had borrowed from her son, Nicky, and he raised his eyebrows. I was struck by a sudden thought and grabbed Noah’s arm. “Nicky,” I said urgently. “Does he know about his mother?”
Noah shook his head. “The police couldn’t get ahold of him. He’s spending the night somewhere in town, probably shacking up with a girlfriend. At least that’s what Jeb Arnold told Sam.”
Jeb Arnold! “How does Jeb Arnold fit into this?” I just realized I hadn’t told Noah about Jeb trying to peddle artwork in town. Noah knew that Jeb had a gambling problem and might be dealing with some shady characters, but I hadn’t mentioned my conversation with Gideon and Andre.
“He’s the one who called it in,” Noah said casually. “Jeb said he stopped in the kitchen to ask Lucy about some landscaping plans and he noticed water leaking from the ceiling. When he went upstairs to investigate, he found Lucy lying in an overflowing tub of water. The boom box was in the water with her. She must have been balancing it on the edge of the tub and somehow knocked it in.”
“Poor Lucy,” I said, feeling close to tears. Something about the boom box and the hardworking Lucy made me regret I had ever considered her as Abigail’s murderer. But so many signs had pointed in that direction.
“Thanks for coming,” Sam said to us, ushering us inside. The last of the crime scene techs were leaving. “Don’t bother with booties,” she said, brushing aside the box of blue paper slippers everyone puts over their shoes at a crime scene. “We’ve already gotten as much as we’re going to get from this place.”
She led the way upstairs, and we passed the second- and third-floor landings. Sam had a spring in her step even though I figured she’d been on duty for at least twelve hours.
“There’s no elevator in this place,” she said over her shoulder, “and Lucy’s apartment is on the top floor.” When we got to the fourth-floor landing, she guided us down a narrow hallway. It was in stark contrast to the rest of the house. The carpet was beige, strictly utilitarian, and there was no artwork on the cream-colored walls. “Did you take a look at Lucy’s apartment when you were doing the inventory here?”
“No, I never got this far. I ran into a few problems downstairs,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it another time,” I assured her.
Sam shot me a curious look. “Keep me in the loop,” she said.
I nodded. I realized I needed to have a sit-down with Sam and tell her what I’d discovered about the phony William Gilbert painting, the fact that Jeb Arnold was spotted trying to peddle stolen property, and my mishap at the mansion today.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the nightmarish experience in the tomb-like basement. Was someone trying to warn me off, or was it just a prank? Angus had made it clear he didn’t like me, and I suspected he was capable of anything. I also needed to tell Sam I finally remembered where I’d seen a fish that looked like the one in the crime scene photo.
Usually, solving a crime is like a puzzle, and as you assemble more and more pieces, the picture comes into view. But this time it wasn’t working that way. I was gathering bits of information here and there, but they didn’t add up to a composite of the killer. Instead, I felt as though I were trapped in a labyrinth, blundering
down blind alleys and reaching dead ends. The clues were coming fast and furious, but there was nothing cohesive about them.
“This is it,” she said, leading the way into Lucy’s private quarters. None of the glamour and elegance of the stately old mansion had made it up to the housekeeper’s quarters. It reminded me of Downton Abbey. The maids’ quarters are invariably tucked away out of sight; small, cramped little rooms that include only the basic necessities.
“Not as fancy as the downstairs, is it?” I murmured as we stepped into a tiny apartment. The living room was small and boxy with a beat-up brown leather sofa, two armchairs that had seen better days, and a TV on a small table.
“She kept it really clean, but it looks like all the furniture were cast-offs,” Sam said. “Abigail didn’t go out of her way to be generous with the help.”
“Except for the thirty million dollars that Lucy stood to inherit,” Noah pointed out.
“That’s only if Abigail didn’t get around to changing her will.” I peeked into two identical small bedrooms. Each one had a single bed, and I assumed one was for Nicky on the nights that he slept at the mansion. “If Abigail changed the will in favor of Sophie, then all bets would be off and Lucy wouldn’t inherit a penny. After thirty years of backbreaking work,” I said.
I could feel indignation rising in me as I inspected the tiny bathroom. It was spotless, like the rest of the apartment, but the chipped tiles and cheap fiberboard cabinets were worn and ugly. Abigail was puzzling to me. She was generous to a fault with her friends and with charitable causes, but she let her loyal housekeeper live like someone who was destitute. Wouldn’t this create a feeling of resentment and entitlement in Lucy? Could she have been angry enough to kill Abigail, as I’d originally thought?
“You think it was murder?” I said, taking another look into the bathroom. The water had been drained out of the tub, and I noticed there was no water on the floor.
“I’ll know more when we get the autopsy report from the ME. It could be electrocution or it could be staged. I thought I saw bruises on her back, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“The bruises would mean that someone held her down?” I asked.
“Yes, and since there’s no water on the floor, she probably didn’t struggle. So someone could have pushed the boom box into the water and she was stunned but not dead. It would have been easy to keep her underwater if she was weakened from the electrical shock. At least that’s my theory right now.”
Noah and I looked around the bathroom. It was hard to believe a violent death had occurred here just a couple of hours earlier. “Where’s the boom box?” he asked suddenly.
“It was taken away as evidence,” Sam said. “We’ll have the techs look it over and see if it shorted out.”
“But it was in the water when you found her?” I looked at the narrow edge along the rim of the tub.
Sam nodded. “Absolutely. She must have had it balanced right here on the edge of the bathtub”—she ran her index finger over the porcelain—“because we spotted faint dark marks there. They matched the bottom of the boom box. She must have plugged it in over there.” She pointed to a wall outlet that was several feet away, above the counter.
I knew immediately that something was wrong with the scene. “The boom box,” I said, thinking fast, “couldn’t have been plugged in over there.”
“But it must have been,” Sam insisted. “There are only two plugs in the room, Taylor. And the other one is above the mirror. And that one doesn’t work; we already tried it.”
“I got a good look at the boom box when Lucy had it in the kitchen,” I said firmly. “It had a very short cord. In fact, it was so short I was afraid it was going to fall in the kitchen sink while she was washing dishes. You can ask anyone. The cord was only a couple of feet long; it could never stretch from the wall socket to the bathtub,” I said.
Sam looked puzzled. “Are you sure? The cord looked perfectly fine to me.”
“No, it was short. You should ask Nicky about it. Lucy borrowed it from him. She needed a charger for her iPod, so Nicky loaned her the boom box. She used to lug it from room to room as she worked.”
“I’ll have the CSIs look into it right away,” Sam said. “I’m glad you mentioned that. There was something about the crime scene that was bugging me, and I couldn’t decide what it was. This is a sad case, isn’t it?” She led the way back to the living room. “Not really much to see here. We went through the second bedroom—I assume that’s Nicky’s room, but I bet he doesn’t spend much time here. It was immaculate.”
“Maybe Lucy cleaned up after him,” I suggested, remembering how she tended to make excuses for her slacker son. She probably waited on him hand and foot. I wondered how he would take the news of her death and what he would do if he had to leave Beaux Reves. With no job, no education, and no skills, he would be out on the street.
We spent a few more minutes in Lucy’s apartment and decided there wasn’t anything more to see. Sam already had uniforms posted at the front door who would alert her if Nicky returned to the mansion. If not, she’d have to try to track down the address of his girlfriend so someone could notify him about his mother’s death.
“We’re still going over that letter you found tucked away in Desiree’s room,” Sam said suddenly. “It’s certainly interesting. If only the writer had signed it.”
“That would make it too easy,” I said ruefully. “I suppose Desiree had a lot of admirers. From what I heard, she was quite the girl about town.”
“But she saved that particular letter, which tells me it was significant,” Sam said. When we got to the first-floor foyer, she paused. “Anything else before we wrap things up here?”
The painting! I’d nearly forgotten the phony William Gilbert in the basement. I whipped out my camera phone. “Can you have someone bring this painting upstairs? You’ll want to take it as evidence.”
“Of course.” Sam gave me a strange look. “Care to tell me what’s going on?”
I took a deep breath. It was embarrassing to admit that I’d been creeped out by being locked in the basement a few hours earlier and had nearly panicked. But there was no way I could keep this from Sam.
Sam always says every single detail could be relevant, and it’s important to tell the police everything. Sometimes one clue leads to another and cases have been closed on circumstantial evidence. So I fessed up to my phobia and told her how Angus had led me down to the basement to work on the inventory. Noah looked worried as I gave a quick version of the events. I tried to leave out the emotional part and concentrated on the painting and why it could be significant.
“It was all about the steeple,” I said, wrapping up my story.
“So if it hadn’t been for the Harper sisters, you never would have suspected the painting was a forgery?” Sam asked.
“Probably not. It looked legitimate to me, and I doubt anyone would send out every single painting to be appraised. This could be the tip of the iceberg. There may be dozens of other paintings here that are forgeries. Maybe someone was commissioned to paint the forgeries and they slowly were introduced into the mansion, one by one, replacing the original artwork. Or maybe someone was authorized to buy them as new acquisitions from a gallery and was getting a cut of the money Abigail laid out for them. It’s just incredible that the Harper sisters remembered about the church fire and the missing steeple.”
Sam laughed. “I think I need to get back to the Dream Club meetings more often. You ladies are going to take over my job. You’ve all turned into detectives.”
“Not really,” I told her. “We just come up with things from time to time.” I suddenly remembered Dorien’s dream about the fish. “And you know that fish symbol on the object you spotted in the crime scene photos?” Sam nodded. “Take a look above the kitchen sink before you leave. Lucy hung a blue ceramic plaque there. It has the same symbol as that shiny obj
ect in the crime scene photo. A line drawing of a fish.”
I didn’t bother telling her about Dorien’s dream about Big Mouth Billy Bass. As far as I was concerned, it was sheer coincidence, and I was sure Sam would feel the same way. “The plot thickens,” she muttered. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll make sure we check it out before we leave.”
Noah moved closer to me, his eyes dark with concern. “Do you think someone deliberately put that board there, blocking your escape?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “At the time I did, but now it seems a little silly. I wasn’t in any real danger, but maybe someone wanted me to mind my own business.”
Sam motioned to a young officer and showed him my camera phone. “Go downstairs to the basement and find this. It’s covered with a drop cloth, leaning against the wall. The entrance to the cellar is at the back of the house. It looks like the opening to a root cellar. Bring a flashlight and use gloves,” she called as he headed outside. “We might be able to dust it for fingerprints.” She thought for a moment. “Did Angus give you any idea who bought the painting?”
“No, not a word. He admitted it was a new acquisition. Of course, I’d already figured that out for myself because it didn’t have any dust on it.” I suddenly remembered the hidden passage in the alcove. “And Angus showed me a hidden staircase here in the house that goes down to the basement. It’s right around the corner from where we’re standing. Would you like to see it?”
“You know I would,” Sam said, pulling on a pair of gloves. “You don’t need to come with me, Taylor,” she said, giving me a sympathetic glance. “You’re looking a little peaked, as they say.” She turned to Noah. “I think we’re done here. Why don’t you take her out for a nice cappuccino or a white wine?”
“I’m on it,” Noah said, looping his arm around me.
26
“Cappuccino or white wine?” Noah asked. We were standing at the bar of a little restaurant down by the Riverwalk.