Dead in the Water (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 1) (22 page)

Kincaid patted my hand. "Ah, but you see, he didn't have an alibi after all. He didn't ring Mason Hall from the city on the night she died."

"What do you mean?"

"He said he had telephoned from the theater and told Mrs. Klein that he would stay in town overnight rather than return home."

"If not in the city, where?"

"We're not certain, of course, but telephone records reveal he made a call at about half past ten from his mobile phone." He paused for emphasis. "In the area of your house, possibly from the side lawn."

His words made me forget my aching throat. At one time I had visualized Chaz coming across Noreen by the lily pond, arguing, and then killing her. I'd got the scenario right but not the person.

"Jason drowned Noreen, then phoned from his car on the lawn to say he was at his club instead? Gave himself an alibi?"

"It would seem so, but once more, establishing this beyond a reasonable doubt might be extremely difficult. If he did murder the woman, our police officer's hasty shot saved us having to try to bring him to justice on somewhat inconclusive evidence."

"He had plenty of motive," I told the inspector. "I think Noreen was blackmailing him about his real father."

"You mean Mr. Capelli. We know about that." Kincaid rubbed his upper lip, trying to finger the no-longer-existing mustache.

"And Tim O'Brien saw the car parked by the lily pond."

"We could discern a vehicle had crossed the lawn. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any tire prints, so we couldn't identify the car." He paused. "However, his attempt on the young man is a different matter."

"Has Chaz told you Jason stabbed him?"

"As yet, we've had no opportunity to question him."

I slipped off the gurney and found I could stand and walk without fainting.

Elizabeth took my arm. "I'll drive you home."

She gave a last glance at Kincaid, and we walked toward the elevators passing Chaz's room where commotion still reigned: police, doctors, nurses, all crowding in. Kincaid joined them, trying to restore order, and Elizabeth and I took the elevator down and walked outside to her car.

The dark sky sparkled with stars but no moon, and even outdoors, I thought I smelled antiseptic. When I climbed into the car, the night's events struck me like a fist to the face. Jason had killed Noreen, almost killed Chaz, and attacked me. Now he'd been shot. Dead. I heard myself make queer, choking sounds, and tears coursed down my face. I trembled uncontrollably and felt as if I would never be warm again.

On Saturday night the family finally took me into the city to see Agatha Christie's
The Mousetrap,
and on Sunday I visited Chaz in the hospital, hoping for a low bacteria count that day. He lay against pillows, head elevated somewhat, and seemed glad to see me.

"I hear you saved my life."

I think I blushed. "Who told you that?"

"Aunt Alice gave me a blow-by-blow. Jolly exciting, I gather."

"Aunt Alice has a gift for exaggeration. I didn't save your life. Give the credit to the police, doctors, and nurses. I'm just a meddling relative. With a bruise or two for it."

I showed him the marks on my neck, although they were beginning to fade. I remembered the sensation when Jason was choking me as if I had my head in an oven set on broil.

"What about you?" I asked. He'd had more than a day to recover from his ordeal with Jason and looked almost normal, no tubes at his nose or mouth, and only a few bandages on his face and neck. I couldn't see what he looked like under the hospital's white sheet and blanket, but his arms, outside the covers, still wore several thick bandages.

"Your meddling sent the police, otherwise Jason might have succeeded in getting rid of me after all."

"But you
are
going to be all right, aren't you?"

He chuckled briefly. "Right as rain in time, they tell me. I should be able to do everything I did before: play in the band, chase women. Please them too," he added with a wink and a grin. Despite his words, he seemed a different Chaz from the brash one I'd known before. Had his brush with death sobered him?

I pulled the white wooden chair closer to his bed and sat, then changed the subject back to his ordeal. "Did Jason hate you that much?"

"Afraid so. We were never on the best terms growing up. With the difference in our ages we didn't have to be chums, but I endured more than the usual bullying. Later I took to lifting weights in part to be able to hold my own with him."

He paused. "As we got older, he resented me even more."

"He envied your luck with women," I suggested.

"Not likely. He married twice himself. Now I know more, I suspect his cruel streak came out with women as well."

So the traits I had noticed in Jason as a child hadn't completely vanished as he matured. "Did anything go on between him and Noreen? Your mother seems to think Noreen seduced him."

He sighed. "She admitted it. After she finished with me, that is."

I took a chance and repeated my old concern. "Did you and Noreen have a plan to steal Edward's money?"

He looked annoyed. "Steal Edward's money? I'm not that much of a rotter."

"I'm sorry, but for a time it looked possible. I thought perhaps she had persuaded you to introduce her to Edward so she could marry him, and after he died, she'd marry you and give you half."

He shook his head from side to side, and his fists clenched where they lay on the bedclothes, knuckles almost as white as the sheets. "I behaved stupidly, I admit it, but not the way you think. I took it for a lark, her wanting to meet my family, bit of a shock to them, a good joke. Never thought the old man would go so far as to marry her. We kept our own on the side. Rather good in bed, you see." He broke off, as if suddenly uncomfortable discussing it with me.

"So you had no future plans with her?"

"Not on your life. Wasn't until we heard Uncle Edward's will that I understood the consequences, realized what I'd done. She started bragging how she'd take everything she could, leave Mason Hall, how she hated everyone."

"Except you."

"Oh, me included." He raised his head an inch or two briefly. "Get this straight though. She didn't dump me. I dumped her. Wanted to kill her myself."

"I guess Jason saved you the trouble. Is that why he tried to murder you too, because you found out he'd killed her?"

"No, I never did." He shrugged. "I thought what a lucky thing, her getting sloshed and falling into the pond."

"You found out later, though, didn't you?"

"He admitted it the night he stabbed me. Truth is, Noreen learned his real father was still alive, a jailbird no less, and she was blackmailing him."

"I suspected it, and she blackmailed your mother."

Chaz's face turned red, and he seemed to choke up. "My mum? How do you know that?"

"She told me." Keeping my explanation as short as possible, I told Chaz about finding the detective's invoice which, in turn, led me to Jason's real father and my ensuing conversation with Aunt Beryl.

"Noreen, the filthy whore. Had I known she did that, I'd have throttled her with my bare hands."

I returned to my earlier question. "Yet, since Jason knew you didn't drown Noreen, having done so himself, why did he want to kill
you
?"

"He assumed Noreen had told me about his real father, and I might make it public, and he wouldn't inherit the property. Personally, I didn't care about inheriting it, didn't want the responsibility."

"With Jason dead, it seems you'll have the responsibility after all."

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. "More's the pity."

"How did he happen to overpower you?"

"When I came home that night he met me down by the back door, started talking about how he'd had the row with Noreen, and now it was my turn. At first I didn't catch on he meant he'd killed her. When I went into the cupboard to leave my mackintosh, I felt a blow on my back, like he'd struck me. I turned my head a bit and saw a knife in his hands. He started stabbing. I didn't move fast enough. The room's confining, you know. Next blow sent me crashing to the floor, struck my head and konked out."

"Do you remember being in your Land Rover?"

"Don't remember him putting me inside, but I came to when he pulled me into the driving seat. I decided to act dead, nearly was at that. I heard him doing something in the back, and then he went off. My brain fuzzy, I wasn't aware. I kept going in and out."

"You'd been stabbed a lot, lost so much blood."

"Figured I was a goner, but I got out and crawled toward the road."

"A Good Samaritan found you."

"And then you managed to find the weapon and get word to the coppers. I still think I owe my life to you."

We were back where we'd started. "I didn't do anything so unusual. I just snooped around and got lucky."

"I'm the lucky one, having a pal like you."

I changed the subject. "I've come to say 'good-bye.' I'm going home tomorrow."

"So soon?"

"It's been two weeks. Besides, I don't think I want to stick around for Jason's funeral."

"Can't say I blame you. You'll visit us again soon?"

"Of course. After you've all had time to get over this."

I stood and reached for Chaz's hand, to shake it.

He took mine and pulled me closer. "Give us a kiss."

I obliged, on the forehead, then pulled my hand free, and backed away. "Good-bye, Cousin."

"Coward," he called after me.

*   *  *

On Monday morning, Mason Hall buzzed with activity. All the servants Aunt Alice had hired showed up at once, plus a few more, since she felt the old place needed a real "turning out." I looked forward to going back to peace and quiet in my own house. I could probably fit the whole thing into the great hall, but at least it didn't require servants. Cooks are nice, but they encourage more eating than when I have to fix meals myself. I was sure I'd gained another five pounds and would have to go on the old South Beach Diet. Better yet, one where you ate nothing but beach sand.

I remembered the card game with Noreen's chums and suddenly longed for a few hands with my own friends, especially Edgar, back in San Ricardo.

I'd miss my newfound relatives: lovable Aunt Alice and charming Uncle William. I said a somber good-bye to Aunt Beryl, justifiably torn between mourning for Jason and happiness that Chaz hadn't been killed.

"Will you come back again when William and I, er, renew our vows?" she asked me.

"I'll try." I thought that, what with her having to get a divorce first, it might easily be a year or more before that happened.

I especially regretted leaving Mr. Tarkington. Elizabeth promised to take good care of the dog, but I wondered if she'd have time for him now Inspector Kincaid had entered her life.

"Martin's educated, been to University," she told me, "not like most single men I've met. And he's very sweet when you get to know him." I'd definitely come back for
that
wedding.

* *   *

I'd always been something of an Anglophile, and after living there for two weeks, I had an even greater appreciation for the place. I felt a strong connection to my English relatives and knew that from now on I'd consider myself part of the extended family, a mere hop over the pond keeping us from fortnightly visits. Fortnightly? See, I'd begun thinking like a Brit already.

Yet, when Brad met me after I came through customs at the terminal in San Francisco, I felt a lump in my throat. For all its faults, I had come home to the greatest country in the world.

Brad, looking fit in a gray turtleneck and blue slacks, gave me a strong hug. "You look wonderful, Livvie."

"I feel wonderful, but I expect jet lag will catch up with me any minute."

He seized my luggage and walked me toward the parking garage elevators. "After what Aunt Alice told me on the phone yesterday, I expected you could fly home sans aircraft. You solved a murder. You should be on cloud nine."

"Alice exaggerates. All I did…"

"Don't deny it. You saved your cousin's life."

"No, the police did."

"But you found the clues leading to the guilty party."

"Well…" I didn't tell him about all the false clues I followed, my theory about Mister X, or my last-minute belief that Elizabeth had done it. Why spoil the moment?

We left the elevator and walked across the upper-level parking area. I stopped and looked up at a clear blue sky.

Brad said, "Welcome to California. I can see you're glad to be back."

I laughed then realized I didn't feel I was back but rather making a new start. I'd left the country in a severely depressed state, upset over my divorce, my self-esteem lower than a dust bunny. Now I could hardly remember the feeling. Noreen and Jason would never agree with me, but murder had given me a new lease on life.

I turned to Brad. "When are we going to open our own detective agency?"

"Livvie, who do you think you are?"

"I'd like to be a private detective."

"Okay, you helped solve one murder. What makes you think you could do it again?"

I smiled and rubbed my fingernails on my jacket lapel. "Elementary, my dear Featherstone. Elementary."

* * * * *