Whiskey Beach

by Nora Roberts

  “Sure. She’s the one who supposedly rescued the seaman who survived the wreck of the Calypso way back when. Nursed him back to health. Some versions have them bumping hips, and getting caught at it.”

  “It wasn’t a seaman, but the captain. Captain Nathanial Broome.” Suskind tapped his fist on the table now. “He didn’t just survive, he survived with Esmeralda’s Dowry.”

  “Well, there’s a lot of theories and stories about that,” Vinnie began.

  Suskind smashed his fist on the table. “I know the truth. Edwin Landon killed Nathanial Broome because he wanted the dowry, then he put his own sister out of the house, convinced his father to disown her. She was carrying Broome’s child, his son.”

  “That sounds like bad luck for her,” Corbett commented. “But it was a long time ago.”

  “She was pregnant with Broome’s child!” Suskind repeated. “And when she was dying, suffering in poverty, and that child, then a grown man, pleaded with Landon to help his sister, to let her come home, he did nothing. That’s who the Landons are, and I have every right to take what’s mine, what was hers, what was Broome’s.”

  “How’d you come by all this?” Vinnie asked casually. “A lot of stories go around about that treasure.”

  “They’re stories. This is fact. It’s taken me nearly two years to put it all together, a piece at a time. I’ve got letters, and they cost me, written by James Fitzgerald, Violeta Landon’s son by Nathanial Broome. They detail what she told him happened that night on Whiskey Beach. He walked away from it, from his rights, Fitzgerald—her son. I won’t!”

  “Sounds to me like you should’ve been talking to a lawyer,” Corbett put in, “not hacking holes in basements with a pickax.”

  “You think I didn’t try?” Suskind jerked forward, face washed angry red. “Nothing but a runaround, nothing but excuses. It was too long ago, she wouldn’t have legally inherited in any case. No legal claim. What about my blood claim, my moral claim? The dowry was booty belonging to my ancestor, not Landon’s. It’s mine.”

  “So, with this moral, blood claim behind you, you broke into Bluff House on numerous occasions and— Why the basement, specifically?”

  “Violeta told her son Broome instructed her to hide it there to keep it safe.”

  “Okay, and you don’t think in a couple hundred years somebody found it, maybe spent it?”

  “She hid it. It’s there, and it’s mine by right.”

  “And you figure that right equals breaking in, damaging property and pushing an old woman down the stairs?”

  “I didn’t push her. I never laid a hand on her. It was an accident.”

  Corbett hiked up his eyebrows. “Accidents happen. How did this one?”

  “I needed to look around on the third floor. The Landons have a lot of things stored up there. I needed to see if I could find something to give me more specifics on the dowry. The old woman got up, she saw me, she ran and she fell. That’s it. I never touched her.”

  “You saw her fall?”

  “Of course I saw her fall. I was there, wasn’t I? It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Okay, let’s be clear. You broke into Bluff House on the night of January twentieth of this year. Ms. Hester Landon was in the house, and she saw you, tried to run from you and fell down the stairs. Is that accurate?”

  “That’s right. I never touched her.”

  “But you did touch Abra Walsh on the night she entered Bluff House, after you’d cut the power, broken in.”

  “I didn’t hurt her. I just needed to . . . restrain her until I could get out. She attacked me. Just like Landon attacked me tonight. You saw that.”

  “I saw you reach for a weapon you had concealed.” Corbett glanced at Vinnie.

  “Yes, sir. I witnessed same, and we have the weapon in evidence.”

  “You’re lucky you only took a couple punches. Now, let’s go back to the night you and Abra Walsh tangled in Bluff House.”

  “I just told you. She attacked me.”

  “That’s an interesting take on it. And did Kirby Duncan attack you, too, before you shot him and pushed his body off the lighthouse cliff?”

  The muscle in Suskind’s jaw twitched again, his gaze shifted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, or who Kirby Duncan is.”

  “Was. I’ll refresh you. He’s the private investigator out of Boston you hired to watch Eli Landon.” Corbett held up a hand before Suskind could speak. “Let me save us some time here. People always think they’re covering their tracks. Like breaking into Duncan’s office, his apartment, getting rid of his records. But when people are in that push of the moment, they forget little things. Like backup files. And what they keep themselves, which will turn up as we’ve got a team searching your house here, and another in Boston going through your apartment.”

  He let that sink in.

  “Then the weapon you pulled, which we’ve confirmed was registered to Kirby Duncan. How did you gain possession of Duncan’s weapon?”

  “I . . . found it.”

  “Just a lucky break?” Now Corbett smiled at him. “Where did you find it? When? How?” Corbett shoved into Suskind’s space. “No answer for that. Take some time to think about it, and while you are, add this in. A lot of people figure wearing gloves or wiping a gun covers their ass. But they just don’t think of wearing gloves when they load one. You planted the gun in Abra Walsh’s house, Suskind, but it wasn’t her prints on the bullets the ME dug out of Duncan. Guess whose?”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Reasonable. Tell me about that.”

  “He came at me. I defended myself. He . . . attacked me.”

  “Like Abra Walsh attacked you?”

  “I didn’t have any choice. He came at me.”

  “You shot Kirby Duncan, pushed his body off the lighthouse cliffs?”

  “Yes, in self-defense—and I took his gun. He rushed me, he was armed, we struggled. It was an accident.”

  Corbett scratched the side of his neck. “You’re pretty accident-prone. But the thing is, we’re good at our jobs around here. Kirby Duncan wasn’t shot at close range during a struggle. Forensics doesn’t back that story up.”

  “That’s what happened.” Suskind folded his arms now. “It was self-defense. I have a right to defend myself.”

  “You have a right to break into private property, to dig around in it, to walk away from an injured woman who fell because you’d broken into her home while she was sleeping, to assault another and to kill a man? You’re going to find out the law doesn’t give you a single one of those rights, Suskind, and you’ll have a long time to think about that in prison when you’re serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Is that going to be your story for why you killed Lindsay Landon? Did she attack you, threaten you, so you had to bash in the back of her skull to defend yourself?”

  “I didn’t kill Lindsay! Landon killed her, and you cops let him get away with it. Money, family name, that’s why she’s dead and he’s free, and he’s lording it in a house that’s rightfully mine.”

  Corbett glanced toward the two-way mirror, gave the faintest nod. Nearly sighed. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake, but a deal was a deal.

  “How do you know Landon killed her?”

  “Because he did. She was afraid of him.”

  “She told you she was afraid of her husband?”

  “She was a wreck after he went at her in public that day. She said she didn’t know what he might do. He’d threatened her, told her he’d make her sorry, make her pay. It’s on record! I promised her I’d take care of her, take care of everything. She loved me. I loved her. Landon was already done with her, but when he found out about us, he couldn’t stand that she was happy. He went over there, and he killed her, then he bought off the cops and walked.”

  “So Wolfe was paid off?”

  “Damn right he was.”

  Corbett glanced around, n
odded again when Eli walked in. “Eli Landon entering interview. Mr. Suskind, I think, again, we can save some time, get this all straightened out, if Mr. Landon’s a part of this process. If you object to having him here, just say so and he’s out.”

  “I’ve got plenty to say to him, here and now. You murdering bastard.”

  “That was going to be my line. But let’s talk.” Eli took a seat at the table.

  Thirty

  “YOU DIDN’T WANT HER.”

  “No,” Eli agreed, “I didn’t, and I wanted her less when I found out she’d lied to me, cheated on me, used me. Did she know why you started the affair? Did she know you were using her to get information on me, on Bluff House, the family, the dowry?”

  “I loved her.”

  “Maybe you did, but you didn’t start sleeping with her out of love. You did it to screw with me, and to pump her for anything I might have told her about the dowry.”

  “I knew her. I understood her. You didn’t even know who she was.”

  “God, you’re right about that. No argument. I didn’t know her, I didn’t want her, I didn’t love her. I didn’t kill her.”

  “You went in that house, and when she told you to go to hell, to get out, that she and I were going to be together, to get married, start our lives, you killed her.”

  “Tough marrying her when you already have a wife.”

  “I’d already told Eden I wanted a divorce, and when Lindsay told you we were both getting free, you couldn’t stand it. You didn’t want her, but you didn’t want anyone else to have her.”

  “I thought your wife didn’t know about you and Lindsay until after Lindsay’s murder.”

  Suskind’s hands balled on the table. “She didn’t know about Lindsay.”

  “You just told your wife, the mother of your two kids, you wanted a divorce, and she didn’t ask any questions?”

  “It’s none of your business what’s between me and Eden.”

  “It’s funny though. Lindsay and I sure weren’t so civilized and reasonable when we were heading toward divorce. A lot of arguing, a lot of accusations and blame. I guess your wife’s a better person, one who’d just step away, let you have what you wanted. Where were you going the night Lindsay died? Come on, Justin, she was packing, we’d had an ugly public fight, and she was upset. You were in love with her, and you’d already asked your wife for a divorce. Lindsay wasn’t going out of town without you.”

  “It’s none of your business where we were going.”

  “But when you went by to pick her up . . .”

  “It was too late! You’d killed her. The police were already there.”

  When he lunged up, Vinnie simply stepped over, put a hand on Suskind’s shoulder and shoved him down again. “Keep your seat.”

  “Keep your hands off me! You’re as guilty as he is. Every one of you. I couldn’t even stop that night, couldn’t even see her. I could only ask one of the neighbors standing out in the rain what was going on. And he told me there must’ve been some sort of a break-in and the woman who lived in the house was dead. She was dead, and you’d already started sliding out of it.”

  Saying nothing, Eli glanced at Corbett and tacitly passed the ball.

  “What you’re saying now doesn’t jibe with your previous statements to the police in the matter of Lindsay Landon’s murder.”

  “I know how it works. Do you think I’m stupid? If I admitted to being anywhere near the house, the cops would’ve pinned it on me. He killed her.” Suskind jabbed a finger toward Eli. “You know it, and you’ve got me in here for doing what I had a right to do. Do your job. Arrest him.”

  “If I’m going to do my job, I have to have it all straight. I need the facts. What time did you drive by the Landon house in the Back Bay?”

  “About seven-fifteen.”

  “And after that?”

  “I went straight home. I was half crazy, I couldn’t think. Eden was making dinner, and she told me she’d just heard a bulletin that Lindsay had been killed. I broke down. What do you expect? I loved her. I was out of my mind, and Eden helped me calm down, helped me think it through. She was worried about me, about our kids, so she said she’d tell the police I’d been there, with her, since five-thirty, that we shouldn’t have to go through the scandal and the pressure because of what Landon had done.”

  “She lied.”

  “She protected me and our family. I’d let her down, but she stood up for me. She knew I didn’t kill Lindsay.”

  “Yes, she did,” Eli agreed. “She knew you didn’t kill Lindsay. And she knew I didn’t kill Lindsay. She gave you an alibi, Justin, one the cops believed. And you gave her one that put her at home, with you, being the good wife, sharing some margaritas, cooking dinner for the two of you when she’d gone over to confront Lindsay, and Lindsay had let her in.”

  “That’s a lie. A ridiculous, self-serving lie.”

  “And Lindsay probably said to her something along the lines of what she said to me the last time we spoke. That she was sorry, but that’s the way it was. She loved you, and you were both entitled to be happy. So Eden grabbed the poker in a rage and killed her.”

  “She couldn’t do that.”

  “You know better. She lashed out because the woman she thought was her friend had made a fool out of her. The woman she’d thought was her friend threatened everything she held close. The husband she’d lived with, trusted, believed in had betrayed her, and would destroy their marriage for someone else’s wife.”

  “She didn’t just say you can have a divorce,” Corbett put in. “You fought, she demanded, and you told her you were in love with someone else. Then you told her who.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “When? When did you tell her about Lindsay?”

  “The night before the murder. It doesn’t matter. Eden protected me, and all she asked in return was for me to give our marriage another try, another few months. She did it for me.”

  “She did it for herself.” Eli pushed to his feet. “Both of you, all for yourselves, and the hell with anyone else. You could’ve had her, Justin. All I wanted was my grandmother’s ring, but Eden wanted more than that, and she used you to get it. It’s hard to blame her.”

  He walked out, and straight to Abra. She pushed off the bench where she’d waited, held tight when his arms came around her, when his forehead dropped to hers.

  “It was hard,” she said quietly.

  “More than I thought it would be.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I will. All of it. Let’s go home, okay? Let’s get the hell out of this and go home.”

  “Eli.” Vinnie walked quickly out of the interview room. “Hold up just a second.” He paused, taking a scan of Eli’s face. “How are you doing?”

  “All in all? Good. It’s good to have it out, to start thinking it can be over.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Corbett wanted me to tell you, when he’s finished with Suskind, he’ll contact Wolfe directly. They’ll pick up Eden Suskind and talk to her. Corbett, if you want my opinion, is going to go into Boston to be in on that.”

  “That’s for them. I’m out of it. None of it’s part of my life anymore. Thanks for your help, Vinnie.”

  “Part of the job, but you could buy me a beer sometime.”

  “As many as you want.”

  Abra stepped around, took Vinnie’s face in her hands, laid her lips softly on his. “He’ll buy the beer, but that’s from me.”

  “Might be better than beer.”

  “Let’s go home,” Eli repeated. “This is done.”

  But it wasn’t, not for him. Not quite.

  The next morning, with Abra by his side, Eli sat across from Eden Suskind.

  Though pale, she kept her gaze steady, her voice absolutely calm.