1 Death Pays the Rose Rent (25 page)

Keep talking, Tori. Keep her from noticing them. Tears streamed from my burning eyes. “Richard? Why kill him?”

“It was Rose’s fault. She was going to tell everyone she did the Rose Rent research. They would have kicked me out of the Society. I needed the Edison machine to get back in, and Richard wanted it for himself. Then I had to kill the judge because Rose told him. And poor LaVonna because she knew. It was all Rose’s fault.”

She started to cry. “All I ever wanted was for people to like me.”

She was a monster, but I couldn’t help but feel compassion and sympathy for her. That was all I’d ever wanted from my family and never got. I gasped, “Put the gun down. We’ll get help.”

Sylvia raised the gun, calmly placed it in her ear, and pulled the trigger. Praxythea screamed.

I took one last look at Sylvia’s body, then seized one of Garnet’s arms, wincing at his moans of pain. “We’ve got to get out of here before we suffocate.”

Praxythea grabbed his other arm, and we half-carried, half-dragged him across the room. We were bent almost double, trying to stay as close to the floor as possible. It felt as though he weighed as much as both of us combined. The muscles in my back screamed in agony. Sooty sweat poured into my eyes, nearly blinding me. I prayed we were going in the right direction.

A red cinder dropped from the ceiling onto the skirt of Praxythea’s long black dress, and the flimsy material flared up at once. She dropped Garnet and

ineffectively attempted to snuff out the flames. I grabbed hold of the cloth on either side of her cleavage and pulled. The dress ripped down the middle and she wriggled out of it. I was glad I’d shed mine earlier.

Garnet was attempting to stand, not very successfully, on one foot. The fire hadn’t spread to the secret room yet, and we were close to the entrance. We draped Garnet’s arms over our shoulders and made a dash for it.

“You go down first,” I told Praxythea. “I’ll help him get on the ladder. You try to keep him from falling.”

Garnet lay facedown on the floor, and I helped him swing his legs into the hole. He used his muscular arms to lower himself down the ladder, one rung at a time.

I yelled for Praxythea. “There’s a flashlight down there. Near the ladder.”

I saw the light come on. As soon as Garnet was far enough below me, I turned around and let my legs find the ladder. The last thing I did before climbing down was to slam the trapdoor shut above my head.

Garnet was leaning against the damp cave wall, blood pouring from a wound in his thigh. Praxythea, flashlight in hand, was examining his leg. “Give me your shirt,” she said to Garnet. “We’ve got to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding.”

I helped him get it off, and Praxythea wrapped it around his leg. “That should hold it for a while,” she said. “Do you know how to get out of here?”

I wanted to scream out of frustration and pain. I was just beginning to feel the burns on my hands and legs. “I do, but there was a cave-in just a few feet from here. I don’t know how we’ll be able to get him past it. We’re going to cook down here.”

Indeed, smoke was seeping through the trapdoor into the tunnel. How long before we were asphyxiated?

“Then we’ll go in the opposite direction,” Praxythea said practically. “There have to be entrances to other houses.”

She was right, of course, and a few minutes later I was hauling and she was pushing Garnet up a ladder into another dusty cellar. One that was free of smoke and fire.

We staggered up the stairs into a large, old-fashioned kitchen, horrifying the family gathered there for a late-night snack.

“Call an ambulance.” I sounded like a crow. “And the fire department. The Historical Society building’s on fire.”

“My word,” the woman said. “It’s Chief Goche-nauer, and he’s hurt.” She ran for the telephone while her husband assisted Garnet to a chair and unwrapped our makeshift dressing. He replaced it with a clean towel and applied steady pressure while we waited for help.

The Historical Society building surrendered to the fire, and when the trucks from several volunteer fire departments all showed up at the same time with sirens screaming and lights whirling, there was nothing left but smoldering ruins. The firefighters concen-

trated on preventing the fire from spreading to nearby buildings.

I learned later that no trace of Sylvia was ever found.

SUNDAY

CHAPTER 26 

I awoke to the ringing of bells. The local churches, their Rose Rent paid for the year, were celebrating the Sabbath. I could hardly believe it was Sunday, and that I was really alive. So what if my throat felt scorched, my head throbbed, and I had some burns on my hands and legs? I was alive!

Praxythea and I were sharing a room at the clinic. We were both hooked up to IV bags, dripping a clear solution into our arms.

“Hi,” Praxythea said with a grin. “Helluva night, wasn’t it?”

“I’ll say. I wonder what those poor people thought when three half-naked, bloody, soot-covered people came staggering into their kitchen?”

“We sure looked a fright. You in that frilly Victorian blouse and cotton underpants …”

“And you in that black satin thingamajig. Is that what they call a teddy? I didn’t know people really wore those things.”

The door opened and Doc Meredith entered. “Good. You’re awake at last. Let’s just check you out.” He listened to my lungs for a long time with an ice-cold stethoscope and studied my burns, then did the same to Praxythea. “You’re both in good shape. You can go home anytime you like.”

He turned to me. “You certainly do have a brave friend,” he said enthusiastically.

I thought he meant Praxythea, but he went on, “Alice-Ann has been here half the night just waiting for you to wake up.”

I lay back on my pillow and grit my teeth. That’s what infatuation does to a man—I was the one who rushed through the tunnels chasing after a dangerous murderess, I stopped her from killing again, I almost lost my life saving two people from a burning building—and Alice-Ann was the “brave” one because she’d survived a night on an uncomfortable hospital chair. Men!

Alice-Ann came in carrying a nylon gym bag. “Thank God you’re all right,” she cried. “I was scared to death. I brought you both some clothes. They said you were almost naked when you came in.”

Meredith unhooked us from our IVs. “Garnet’s in his room dying to ask questions. Are you up to it?”

“You bet,” I said.

After getting dressed, we followed a nurse down the hall to Garnet’s room. He lay with his leg bandaged from ankle to hip. His smile, when he saw me, was worth all the danger I’d been through. I bent over and kissed him gently. He put his arms around me and kissed me back, not so gently.

“Thanks for saving my life,” he said, still holding me.

“Anytime,” I said as I managed to disentangle myself from his bear hug. Then I saw there were others in the room. Luscious was leaning against the wall, and Michael was there with Rose, who was seated in a wheelchair wearing a fuzzy pink robe and a bandage wrapped around her forehead.

“Now,” Garnet said, “you are going to tell me what happened last night and explain why.” He sounded tough, but I was learning that it was just his way of expressing concern.

“I will, but I think Rose should start. It’s really her story. Will you, Rose?”

“I think I’d better. It’s all been inside me for so long …then I told Benjamin …and …and it killed him.”

I took her withered hand in mine. “Go ahead, Rose.”

“I killed them. All three.”

“Is this a confession?” Luscious asked, pulling out his notebook.

“Put that damn thing away and don’t be ridiculous,” Rose snapped. He sheepishly stuffed the notebook back in his shirt pocket. “Where should I start?”

“Start with your father’s death,” I suggested. “Sylvia admitted she killed him.”

Rose gasped. “I always thought she had. The whole thing began more than thirty years ago. I was happy here, piddling around with the local history stuff, and taking care of Father. And I was in love with Benjamin Parker. He wasn’t a judge then, just a lawyer, and he used to visit the castle and discuss history with Father and me. Sylvia was never interested in history, but she always hung around when he came over. Later, I learned she was in love with him herself and had deluded herself into thinking the reason he came to the castle was to see her.

“When I became pregnant, she was furious. Benjamin wanted to get married at once, but she swore she would kill herself if we did. She told me lies—that she and Benjamin had been having an affair, and that it was really her he loved.

“I was confused and scared. Things were different then; unwed mothers were not glamorized like they are now. Sylvia convinced me that Father would disown me if he knew about my wicked behavior. She talked me into leaving town to have the baby. She made up a lie that I had a job at the Smithsonian in Washington, and she sent me money every month to cover my expenses. Her idea was that I would put the child up for adoption, then ‘quit’ my job and come home.

“like a fool, I refused to see Benjamin again, believing that he had betrayed me with Sylvia, and I left the state. Everything went as Sylvia planned, but when I held Michael in my arms for the first time, I knew I could never give him up.”

Rose looked up at Michael and smiled. “I brought Michael home. I didn’t care if my father kicked us out or disowned us, I wanted him to know he had a grandson. He was delighted and never even asked me to tell him who the father was.

“Sylvia was horribly jealous of me and Michael. She went to Father and told him I was wicked and immoral and a disgrace to the Thome family and should be sent away. Her plan backfired. Father grew angry with her and drew up a new will, disowning her and leaving everything to me and then Michael.

“When he told her what he had done, she went crazy. That’s the day Father died. I guessed that she had killed him, but I couldn’t accuse my own sister. I knew he would have forgiven her if he had lived.

“I always treated her as if we shared everything equally. I even enjoyed watching her become the town’s social leader. She never mentioned our father or the will again, and I thought everything would be all right.”

Rose took a few sips of water. “Now we come to the terrible thing I did. A few months ago, I started having headaches and blackouts. Meredith diagnosed an inoperable brain tumor. We do a lot of stupid things when we stare death in the face. What I did was to kill three people.”

Luscious pulled out his little notebook again, convinced he was finally going to get his confession.

“I can’t go on,” she said tearfully.

“I can,” I said.

Everyone stared at me in astonishment, including Rose.

“Sylvia didn’t just send you money out of the goodness of her heart. She demanded something from you, and you gave it to her, the results of the research you had done about the history of Rose Rent Day—and allowed her to pass it off as her own. She

used the ‘borrowed’ research to gain membership in the Historical Society, hoping to impress Benjamin and her father.”

“Is she right?” Garnet asked.

Rose nodded.

“It was obvious to me that the roses found with the bodies linked the murders together, and that they represented a connection with Rose Rent Day. That’s why I was sure both men had been killed by the same person.”

I paused and looked pointedly at Garnet. “But who? I knew Rose had the motives, but she also had an alibi for the judge’s death. Sylvia was the one person most closely associated with Rose Rent Day, but she had no motive to kill anyone. Or at least that’s what I thought until yesterday.”

“How do you know all this?” Garnet asked, sounding none too pleased.

“I did a little snooping around the castle and found the original Rose Rent research paper in the bottom drawer of Sylvia’s desk. She must have forgotten it was there after all these years. On the title page it said ‘by Rose Thorne.’ That meant Sylvia had been living a lie all these thirty years. Her motive was to protect herself from being exposed as a fraud. And she had the opportunity to kill them both.”

Garnet’s eyes were that icy-cold blue again.

“Garnet, I tried all afternoon to get hold of you to tell you, really I did.”

I helped myself to a sip from Garnet’s water glass. My throat was raw from all the talking. “Sylvia

learned Rose was going to talk to the judge, and she feared the worst.”

“How did she know about the appointment?” Garnet asked.

“I ‘borrowed’ Rose’s datebook yesterday and saw she had written down her scheduled meeting with the judge.”

“I knew you didn’t come over just to clean bathrooms,” Rose said, smiling just a little.

“You made an appointment to meet the judge at his house and you wrote it down in your book, which you kept on your desk where Sylvia could read it. When she saw you had a meeting scheduled with the judge, she guessed correctly that you were going to confess the fraud you’d been a party to.”

Rose nodded. “I wanted to die with a clean conscience. I didn’t think about how telling the truth would hurt Sylvia. It was terribly selfish of me.”

I continued, “Sylvia realized her time was running out. Not only would she be exposed and look like a fool in front of those people who admired her, but when you died, the estate, what was left of it, would go to Michael. She would lose everything that had been important to her for the past thirty years.

“Some time ago, Richard had found the Edison spirit-communication machine in a house he was selling and brought it to Sylvia, thinking she could help him get into the Historical Society. When she felt threatened by Rose, she must have regarded the machine as a godsend—something she could use to retain her own Society membership and social position.

“The first night I was here, I went to the Rose Rent meeting at the castle with Alice-Ann and her husband. As we were leaving, I overheard Sylvia telling Richard to bring ‘it’ over early the next night. They seemed to be having a disagreement. When she noticed me listening, she explained to me she wanted Richard to tape-record the seance. Later that evening, Richard stormed out of the house, carrying the Edison machine with him, although I thought, at the time, it was a suitcase.

“As we know, he went to the castle and was killed there. I think he probably decided to drop the machine off, and they had an argument about what they were going to do with it. She let him in, and while he was putting the machine in the library, she picked up Alice-Ann’s hammer. When they went out on the terrace, she struck him with it. Then she strapped him on his motorcycle and drove it out towards the highway.”

“But she was seventy years old,” Garnet protested.

“Yes, but in good health, and a lot bigger than Richard. I don’t think she would have had much trouble dragging him around. She probably meant to drive the motorcycle out to the highway and make it look as though he’d had an accident. I don’t think she meant to ride it into the firethorn hedge. Most likely she lost control of it. Richard had joked with her earlier about giving her stopping lessons next.

“That’s how she got the puncture wounds on her arms. She had to wear long sleeves at the seance to hide them. And she made Rose wear a similar outfit, so she wouldn’t look out of place. She got frightened when she heard the doc say that firethorn wounds

could cause blood poisoning. She pretended to get scratched after we found Richard’s body in order to get some antibiotic ointment, which she thought she could rub on her arms to prevent infection. But as the doc said, deep puncture wounds are far more serious than scratches and require treatment by penicillin injection.”

“What happened to Richard’s helmet?” Garnet asked.

“She found it on the terrace, when she came back to wash the blood away. The simplest way to get rid of it would have been to throw it in the pond. I’ll bet a nickel you’ll find it there. And LaVonna’s missing purse, too.”

Luscious licked his pencil lead and made a notation in his little book.

“Why did she leave the rose with Richard?” Alice-Ann asked.

Rose spoke up. “Remember, Rose Rent Day had been the most important element of her life for thirty years. She must have wanted Richard to receive his due, even in death.”

“I think poor LaVonna must have looked out her window and seen Sylvia riding off on the cycle,” I went on. “It must have seemed strange at the time, then the next night, when Richard’s body was found, she realized it had to have been Sylvia who had killed him. Maybe she went to Sylvia with her suspicions, or maybe Sylvia overheard her earlier telling me she had something she wanted to talk about. Later that night Sylvia lured her down to the kitchen, stabbed her, and stuffed her in the oven. She probably meant to move the body later, but never found a convenient time to do it.